The Other Side of Dawn Chapter One
by homeryannosfan
Summary: Chapter One of the Other Side of Dawn from Homer's point of view. Feel free to leave comments, reviews and correct mistakes, I know I missed some. NOTE I do not own or have copy write to any of these characters, the setting or the title.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Sometimes, when your really scared time passes slower than ever. Everything is a million times longer than usual. But then again sometimes when your scared but you have a purpose things go by so fast that you hardly have time to react.

When I shot the soldier that was surrendering, well I've tried not to think too much about that. But it was a mistake. Sometimes when you are so hyped up, when your adrenaline levels reach the max, when everything you are doing has to happening instantly, when your so afraid that you are about to lose the one friend that is closer to your heart than any one else. The one friend that you would go to Hell with, when you think that the friend is in instant from death you don't think clearly, you react.

I sometimes look at the index finger on my left hand. I look at it, the finger that killed. I'm just glad that Ellie's alive. I couldn't keep my eyes off of her when we went to meet the helicopter, she was alive, she was alive. I never want to kill, never again. I've killed too much! I took so many lives trying to survive in this war. So many times I've wondered if I have something special, if I'm going to do something great. Or if my nerve went sooner than the guy over there and my bullet hit him first.

Sometimes I think its just that. Sometimes I wonder if it was just because my nerve went first, half a second before the other guy. Because my mind said "Shit trigger finger squeeze!"

In fact I'm sure it was just that, I'm sure that I wouldn't have been here if it hadn't have been for my nerve being lost a fraction quicker than the other bloke.

I wonder, if there is a God, when you get there, if you get there you get to talk to him. If he explains that your brain was just a fraction too slow. If you wake up and he says, "Sorry mate, your brains a wanker, it wasn't fast enough go sit on that cloud and see what the faster bloke is doing with his life right now."

Well maybe not that, but this is getting off topic. Just like a few hours ago, when me and Lee started talking about this exact thing. We started off talking about how much land we would win back from these bastards and it turned into reaction time.

I wonder if reaction time is just your nerve losing it, if the faster your reaction the weaker you are when it comes to you nerve. It would seem logical, then again maybe your just a stoner if you can't react, maybe your nerve just isn't there.

Anyways, I was lying on the edge of a bank on the far side of one of Ellie's paddocks. I was watching the track. Waiting, just waiting for them to come. I realised that if they came my way I might be able to save the lot of them. But in reality the rest of the lads knew, we had agreed on it. If they came we would stall them for as long as we could.

Lee had joked to me about throwing pebbles at the tanks to get there attention, it was one of weird laughs, you know the stressed laugh.

I just lay there scanning when the helicopter came overhead. It was as loud as a bloody army of tanks rolling up on your doorstep and everything around you was consumed with the noise.

I looked back and saw these guys jumping out and passing crates and barrels out of the copter. I smiled and then looked back out into the darkness.

After a few minutes the copter lifted off into the air. I smiled, I hoped this was a clean getaway.

I stayed where I was for about five minutes. Suddenly I heard something move from behind me. I froze and looked back. I saw something move from behind a tree and then I thought I saw something moving off in the distance, my hand went to my pocket until I remembered that I'd lost the bloody knife to the little shits back in Stratton.

I picked up a big ass stone and got ready, whatever happened I wouldn't go down without a fight, without a blaze of guns and blood and adrenaline and definitely testosterone.

Then suddenly Kevin skidded in beside me, frigging idiot. He had approached so frigging quickly. I just about clunked him with that. He looked at me and said "The copter's came and left mate, we can go help."

Bloody Kevin, even Gavin could have heard the frigging copter landing and leaving, I was only about five hundred metres away from it for frig sake! So I looked at him and said.

"No shit Sherlock, that big thing with the blades spinning around I thought that was a great big bird."

Kevin took offence which just made things worse.

"Hang on I thought I saw something out there." I said as Kevin sunk lower into the bank.

"Do you think it's an ambush."

"Well if it is they're taking the bloody time. You've made as much noise as an elephant and they would have seen you when you slid over. If they're out there they're waiting for something."

"What?" Asked Kevin.

"Well think about it. They shoot you and me that gets them squat. Then they might let who ever got of the copter escape. That's the thing, I think they're just watching. They want to know what they're up against. If we're going to get it, it'll be a tad later."

So we waited for another few minutes. Finally I picked up a rock and threw it at the tree. There was a thud but nothing else happened. I crawled backwards and Kevin waited for a second before picking up a rock and throwing it into the trees.

Nothing, I was glad Kevin had done that though. It had proved that nothing was out there. Or if it was they weren't afraid of rocks the size of fists coming at them.

So we went to the meeting point and saw the others coming as the two of us hoisted a set of boxes up and began to take them to the stash over by a group of rocks about a hundred metres away.

The man was about thirty, sort of tall, black hair and bushy eyebrows. I could smell the smoke off of him, he was definitely a smoker. We stood there and had a rapid fire conversation.

It ended with him wanting us to take the supplies in the direction of Stratton and that's when I got a little pissed. Colonel Finley, the bastard, was going to get us to do something again. All I could think was, "Well shit, on the road again. Shit!"

Ellie decided to take the crates to the wetlands, that meant a lot of carrying. The five of us could do it in two trips. But all three of the guys and the Kiwi soldier took a little extra so that there was only one crate for two people on the way back.

When we got there Ellie and Kevin got the job of hiding the crates. I had to take the other two back to where we were in the first place. That's one thing Ellie will tell you, I know her property as well as she knows mine. We both could tell you exactly where you were if you just told us what the tree looked like. All right we weren't that good but you get the point.

So as we were heading back along the shoreline we couldn't resist, there is this part where you go up about ten metres. Well me and Lee slipped up there and Lee grabbed some mud and chucked it at them.

Not to be out done I grabbed a rock, well maybe closer to a boulder and heaved it at them. I've never seen Kevin react like that. He just about pissed himself I think. The boat rocked back and forth and the oar was just about lost.

I don't think the two of us had laughed that hard since the war started. Suddenly the Kiwi went purple and started to yell at us in a whisper, if that's possible.

He told us off and we left. All the way back I talked to lee in murmurs about him, the Kiwi guy. He was strange, slightly, well odd. I mean any time you drop in a helicopter for twenty-four hours its odd but this time it was really odd.

There was this feeling about him. He had this overly worried air to him. He was jumpy and his head was spinning three sixty. He was real bloody worried, not saying I wasn't, but he was over the top.

Anyways he had this anger about him too and we found out why later. But he just seemed like he was so macho and ready to attack but at the same time he couldn't. It was like he was in a bubble, the rest of the world couldn't get in and from the inside he must have felt that he couldn't get out.

But that's off the plot. We staggered to the hiding spot and picked up the last crates. I made sure I got the two small ones that weighed more than the big barrel and the big crate.

Why? Because I didn't like the size of the box, too bulky and the barrel would be hard as heel to carry, its shape was all wrong.

When we got to back to Ellie and Kevin they looked exhausted. I just got everything onto the boat then slipped up to watch for the enemy.

In the distance I heard a helicopter but I didn't get anyone, it was going in the opposite direction. I think they might have been following the Kiwi one but I couldn't be sure.

Anyways when they got back from their second row across the water Lee picked up some rocks and Ellie gave him a string of curses and he dropped it sulkily, which didn't make anything better I was going to hear about this next time me and Lee was alone.

The Kiwi was half asleep curled up under a tree when Ellie screamed at Lee, that woke him. Now the bastard was really starting to show signs of his true anger and I was thinking about ways to wind him up, should he get to pissed off at us. I was hoping to maybe get all of us a laugh or two.

So as Ellie tried hopelessly to tie the dingy to a tree the rest of us went and got some branches and leaves to cover the dingy as well as cover our tracks.

The Kiwi at this point had gone up to the top of the little rise by the water and was staring off into the distance, this was only the start of what made me like him slightly less. He was so overly professional that sometimes he would forget that he should be helping.

But then again maybe he didn't help us much because he figured that we it wasn't his problem. Although I wish he would have thought about it a little closer, it was our bacon on the lines here. If he decided not to help us in the slightest when he could have showed us a little trick to make us less noticeable and we died because of it, well.

I'm rambling now. I've got to stop and get on with the story. When we finally finished it was nearly 5.00 and we were all ready to hit the ground and sleep forever.

But we al realised that we still had to climb up Tailor's Stitch and the trek down into Hell, that was what was getting at us, this would be Hell and boy were we tired!


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2**___

_We found out that the Kiwi__'__s name was Ryan, he was 28 and before the war he had been an engineer who lived outside Dunedin. Now, during the war, he was a Captain in the Kiwi SAS. _

_We were slow heading up the hill and I only paid attention at times. But mainly I was trying to grill him about the conditions in New Zealand, I wanted to know what was happening._

_In a sick way I hoped they were suffering as well. Our two nations are so close, so bonded, but at the same time the Tasman Ocean separates us more than just physically. I guess its like the Canadians and the Americans. Nothing could come between them, if one got into trouble the other would back it. Well I don__'__t know completely about that. I don__'__t get the feeling that the Canadians are exactly as full of themselves or ready to charge into Hell with the States, but no one really is._

_The point being that if one of us, New Zealand or Australia, were suffering then it only seemed fair that the other was suffering as well._

_Ryan was vague, maybe because he just didn__'__t like talking about it. But he blamed it on being dangerous to talk in the bush at night, fair dinkum I suppose._

_Anyways the last thing I got out of him was about the conditions on the whole._

"_Listen mate, I don__'__t want you to know too much it would damage your morale-__"__ I cut him off._

"_You listen to me, mate. Do you really think that because you Kiwi buggers are taking some heavy flak will damage my morale right now, you must have missed a hell of a lot. Look around buddy, I don__'__t think a sad story about everything being rationed is going to hurt my morale too much. I wish we had stuff to be rationed!__"_

_That got him slightly ticked I think, he didn__'__t say much after that. I guess it had sort of hurt him. That__'__s fair, but I mean really. Here we are sweating our arses off blowing shit up, attacking people, killing people and living on the edge of existence fighting so that we could have a country back and this Kiwi who__'__s been sitting on his fat arse for most of the war comes in and tries to tell us what will damage our morale and what won__'__t well, let__'__s not get onto this._

_Anyways as we started to stop talking, only mumbling, making small talk. Who had the better rugby team before the war. Some rules about footie, that kind of stuff. Anything to dance around the sore topic of the home fronts, for both of our nations._

_Slowly the light started to return and that started to give me trouble. I never like it when the sky starts to turn from black to grey, it__'__s the peak time for you to start to lose focus. Why? Because the world is awakening, everything is returning again!_

_I like it when its so dark that you can only focus on everything around you, with nothing to distract you. In full light, you can only focus on what your looking for._

_But under the circumstances I preferred darkness. But that__'__s natural when you might get shot in the light. We might get shot in the dark as well though._

_I didn__'__t notice when Ellie froze or when Kevin froze. I didn__'__t notice five soldiers march across the track about two hundred metres ahead. I didn__'__t notice, that still haunts me. If I hadn__'__t have caught the glint off one of the helmets, if I hadn__'__t, there are so many ifs about that night._

_But that one haunts me like nothing you could imagine. I saw them and froze to the spot. Lee suddenly was as still as a tree one a day without a whisper of wind._

_It took Ryan a second to realise that they were in front of us. He sort of jumped and was in a combat stance before he realised that they were in front of us._

_Then suddenly they were gone. But the danger was still there. All I could think of was Fi down in Hell by herself, with the kids. If I was in a video game with a submachine gun and a million health points I would have run up the track firing it like mad. I think I would even have paused the game and put in the invincibility cheat and then put in infinite ammo cheat and just ran to Fi shooting everything that moved._

_But it wasn__'__t a video game and me getting killed would do absolutely nothing good. I just wished that we could alert Fi before they came barrelling down the track into Hell. I just couldn__'__t picture it or I could. A massacre, the bodies of six children lying mutilated on the ground in Hell and then Fi lying ruined on the ground by bullets. _

_Fi is a great person and I do love her. That__'__s why I was willing to do just about anything to get to her. I think it was because I knew that despite her best efforts she wouldn__'__t be bale to accomplish anything other than getting everyone killed and that scared me. _

_But they had gone, they were across the horizon and now we had to worry about our next move. I think that it would have been a major massacre at that moment in time. I could picture that one as well. The five of us lying on the side of the track with all kinds of journalists from the enemy__'__s country taking flash photography and people chatting as they looked at the five bodies of the dead. As they looked at us, five dead guerrilla__'__s._

_It would have made the news. Us lying on a cloth line up and blood covered. It still sends chills through my spine. It reminded me of this story of refugees from Vietnam. We learned about that war some time in Year 9 or 10. Anyways this book was all about them and at the very end, just as they got to the frontlines where the Americans soldiers would give them shelter where they thought the Red Cross was the Americans started shooting and they were slaughtered. _

_I just pictured the main characters being us. I just pictured five carbon copies of Lee being slaughtered. I know that__'__s racist and what have you, but still. What I__'__m getting at was in the book how they died was just like what would have happened to us. A quick burst of fire and everything would be over, all things ended in a flash of fire and flames._

_We all slid on our knees into some scrub everyone shaking and everyone terrified. Lee was the one who looked like he was ready for some blood. He looked fierce the way he was. He sat their looking up the track, I noticed a huge rock in his hand and his knife in the other._

_Kevin was shaking hard, I think he was worrying about the kids. They were so precious to him. He loved them like they were his own children or maybe his little brothers and sisters so I don__'__t make him sound like a pervert._

_Ellie was showing some serious signs of distress and for a few seconds, before she got herself under control, I thought she__'__d curl up into a little ball and cry like Kevin in the back of the truck at the air base._

_Ryan looked terrified to the greatest extent, I felt like saying in slow words, __"__It__'__s alright Ryan, that__'__s what the enemy looks like.__"_

_We slipped a little bit farther up the track about thirty metres I__'__d say then we got into a little group and prepared to discuss what our next move would be._

_Ryan was angry now, maybe he was so upset about the fact that he nearly shit himself when he saw them, but then again maybe that__'__s just me._

_Then he said __"__Well that was a great effort. Good call Ellie.__"_

_I just about hit him. I just about killed him. He had no right to tell us what or when we made mistakes. He wasn__'__t any help. He didn__'__t do anything except sit there on his fat arse getting angry at us. He was so worried about his own skin he didn__'__t seem to realise that it wasn__'__t just him who just about lost his life. Who did he think he was?_

_Ellie said that his blood pressure was just about off the scale then. Well mine had gone a long time prior. This bastard was just about at the point were he could take his head and shove it up his ass so far that the bump in his throat would be his nose._

_Ellie fought back, she told him that we knew the mountains backwards and that in fourteen months they__'__d only been the second group up the mountains. She didn__'__t bother telling him that they were the second group in a little bit more than twenty-four hours but if he had of told him that then he__'__d have gone off the mountain in a body bag with his body in a straight jacket the man would have lost his mind with fear. He was almost there when we met him and now, well at that moment I think he would have lost his mind if we had of told him that._

_He asked what we would do next, Ellie said go into Hell because Fi and the four rascals were down there. I think that Ryan shit himself there, four kids?_

_He said Mother of God, I remember that, which was his catch phrase like in batman or something like that._

_Anyways I backed up Ellie on heading into Hell, which made Ryan worse still he didn__'__t want to waste time, dirty bugger!_

_Anyways after we said we were going into Hell he said, __"__We__'__re going to have to be bloody careful!__"_

_Really? Not shit Sherlock I was planning to go have a party with the bastards. I think we should take out the noise makers and starting counting down to New Year, Christ!_

_Anyways we half ran up the side of the Hell and stopped fifty metres short and sent me and Kevin, expendable crew members one and two up to check it out. We were gone about twenty minutes._

_I saw them spread out along Tailor__'__s Stitch looking down into Hell, that isn__'__t a good sign. They were spread out alone the ridge looking down into Hell so I was really worried. I had to move slow because if they saw me, well, I think we all know what would have happened._

_Anyways I finally got back and told Ellie the news. She looked and me and suggested that they had seen something from the air and Ryan came in. _

_We found out that he wasn__'__t aloud to actually attack the enemy unless he was attacked first. So what good was he? What the hell good was he? A trained SAS Captain who wasn__'__t aloud to attack, what use was he? Like a mule at the Kentucky Derby._

_We wanted to split the ammo between the four of us with our weapons that we got off the dead soldiers. Kevin had arrived and was unhappy about the situation. That was kind of rich coming from him, I mean considering a lot of things._

_Anyways we sorted out the weapons and then we headed slowly up the side of Tailor__'__s Stitch. I was worried because they had moved farther up the ridge since I had been there._

_Me and Ellie were scanning the ridge when we saw this guy. He was holding onto something, he bent over and did something then he disappeared over the ridge. I was terrified at this point, they weren__'__t committing suicide they were heading into Hell!_

_Suddenly there was a lot of scuffling from Lee and Kevin, I think Lee tripped right over the woman. But anyways Ellie sprinted over to check things out and I walked closer to the edge to see what was going on. _

_Then quite quickly I heard a movement in the bush, the others were now out of sight, they were over closer to the edge and I was right next to the path, they would have had to walked about five metres to see me. Anyways this guy jumped at me but I managed to push him backwards into the bushes. I punched him in the face and he was down. He had dropped a knife and as he groaned for a second I snatched it from his hand._

_He saw the knife in my hand and was about to struggle but I got it into him and finished him as quick as I could. Then I got the hell out of there. When Ellie and them caught up about fifteen seconds later it was like nothing happened, even if they knew it wouldn__'__t have made a difference, at this point we were reacting, not thinking or feeling._

_I don__'__t know if I could have done what I did to that soldier if I hadn__'__t thought of Fi and kids being dead in minutes if I didn__'__t._

_There__'__s something about killing someone like that, so quickly, so viciously that gets you later. When you think about it. But then again I think about what life would have been like if someone else did it, they all could have been dead because I didn__'__t want to stick a guy with a blade._

_When Ellie and the others came over she acted quickly. She pressed the start button on the time of Lee__'__s watch and said that me and her would go down into Hell, Lee wanted to come so the three of us went. Ellie told Kevin to cut the rope in eight minutes, we would be cutting this one close!_

_I don__'__t think I__'__ve ever ran as hard in my life, I__'__m not a sprinter so much as a cross country runner. But this was hard we were constantly hitting things and Ellie was always pushing branches out of the way that would whip back and smack me in the face!_

_We kept running, running full tilt. All I had to do to pick up the pace was think of Fi, Fi dead and that made me speed up._

_We got to the bottom and we stopped to a creep. They saw her just as we saw them, it was one of those moments that happen in the country westerns. It was six against three, I had said that I thought it was five, so that was such a big misjudgement right? Anyways I knew that if we got them quickly they wouldn__'__t be a problem._

_I had lifted my rifle at this point and my finger was on the trigger, I was ready to fire and then eight minutes was up! Kevin cut the rope and there was the scream of the woman. My God that scream was enough to make you want to jump off of the ridge itself._

_I watched for only a second as the soldiers turned while everything went by in slow motion. Then my trigger finger pressed in and I felt the kickback of the gun. I felt it firing and I watched the effect as the soldiers began to turn and fall._

_In the background Lee started firing and then Ellie. It only lasted for about five seconds but it was the longest space of time in my life._

_I ran over and checked the woman__'__s pulse. She was dead and I would have given her a shot for luck but I was running low on ammo. Lee was swapping a gun because his gun jammed and then he said, one got away._

_That wasn__'__t a big problem. He wouldn__'__t be much trouble for us in the next few minutes._

_We were heading for Hell when we found out that one of the soldiers had fallen into that big hole that Gavin and Lee had made. Anyways to make a long story short we took the woman from atop the ridge and we strung them to this tree._

_Lee decided he would go up and make sure the ridge was safe. He would wave his green shirt if all was safe and my brown shirt of things weren__'__t._

_As we watched him go I could feel that Ellie was beginning to trust Lee again and that was probably one of the best turning points of the war, for me anyways. _


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter 3**_

_All I remember after we killed the guys was saying. __"__Let__'__s take it slow and steady along the side of the ridge and watch out for the slightest sign of trouble.__"_

_Fi and the kids were beside themselves, they were all shaking and worried sick. Because I had become big Daddy Homer I tried to calm them and took the rear of our little group. We stopped just for a second to catch our breathes. I walked over to Jack and patted him on the back. He looked up at me red faced and wide eyed._

"_Are we going to die Homer?__"__ He whispered._

_I just smiled and put my huge hand over the top of his head and said quietly._

"_Not while Lee, Kevin and Me are here.__"_

_Then I went to Gavin, I figured that Fi and Ellie would calm the others down, which they were doing. That__'__s one thing about Ellie__'__s writing that she missed I think just from looking at it, she didn__'__t mention that she held Casey to stop her trembling for about a minute and a half. I can understand why she didn__'__t mention it, but I just thought that I__'__d put that out there._

_Then I walked over to Gavin, his head was darting every which way._

"_Are you alright Gavin?__"_

_He looked at me and thought about it for a second before shaking his head yes._

"_I just wish I could have been there to help.__"_

_I looked at him and smiled, he forced his little monkey smile and then I said._

"_Are you sure that__'__s not all?__"_

_He looked annoyed with the question, angry that I thought he had any emotion other than tough guy, I suppose I was like this when I was a kid, but it was still kind of annoying._

"_It__'__s just well- anything loud enough for me to hear, especially here, makes me worried and when it__'__s gunfire it__'__s all the worse.__"__ There was a moment__'__s silence, then he said __"__Were you scared Homer?__"_

_I didn__'__t way anything for a few seconds I thought about what Ellie had been preaching, show the guys it was ok to feel more than just tough guy._

"_Yes Gavin, I was terrified, probably more than you. But I think that we__'__re both ok. And besides we__'__re all together and now we__'__ll be safe and if you want to look at it this way if anything big happens you__'__ll be right their with us.__"_

_It took Gavin a second before he nodded._

"_Did you get all of that?__"__ I asked him looking at his bright red cheeks._

_He nodded yes and then we all got up and started off and at a medium walk._

_When we met the soldier with the screwed leg they all looked at him like some kind of freak and nothing more. I suppose that__'__s a really bad sign, I mean this guy had everything on his leg destroyed, I mean everything. If this had have been year earlier it wouldn__'__t have been any damper on their character if they had wretched, but now they were tough to it._

_In some ways I think Gavin to his lead from me, I just passed this guy by without word or worry, so when he took his lead from me the others took their lead from him, it had a ripple effect. I quite liked it, it made me feel so much more in control of these kids._

_It was then that it hit me, this wave of utter joy that they were alive and that I was able to see them again. I wanted to give them all hugs and chocolate and lollipops and run around playing hide and seek and singing songs. Well alright that__'__s a bit overboard but you get the point. I realise how attached I__'__d come to be to these little brats and I realise how much I wanted them to live and that I__'__d do anything for them, even die for them._

_That__'__s not going overboard. Especially Gavin, little bugger, he was like the little brother I never had. We got along for the most part. I mean sure sometimes we got into arguments, but we were good mates._

_When we met Lee and Kevin they had the woman soldier from the top of the trail and they wanted to tie the other one up against a tree. I thought that to be a good idea and considering that she had gone clean clipping crazy._

_Lee and Ellie went off to tie the two of them to the tree and we went to the top. After about ten minutes we were there and again I tried to comfort them in any way I could. Kevin was amazing with Natalie, she was still sobbing a little and he took her in his big arms and walked over and sat down on a dead eucalyptus tree and just sat there with her comforting her. Jack sat on a big boulder with his fists under his chin and his elbows on his knees._

_Fi was sitting on another boulder with Casey, her arm around Casey gently stroking her hair and giving her soft words of encouragement. Gavin stood by me looking around with his tough guy face on._

_I walked over to a tree and broke a branch off and then returned to Gavin._

"_Want to see something cool?__"__ I asked not quite sure was I was going to show him and suddenly Jack who was now wandering over._

"_Do you know how to tell if a tree is dead or not?__"__ I asked, sure that they would know, after all we__'__d sent them looking fro fire wood. But to my great surprise they just stood there and shook their heads looking excited, despite the situation._

"_Right here where I broke it what colour is it?__"_

_Jack answered quickly, __"__Green!__"_

"_Yeah so this one is alive, that__'__s why its so hard to break it off the tree sometimes it__'__s still alive.__"_

_They seemed to be pleased with that, then Gavin said something about taking a leak and he walked off about twenty metres into the bush. In the meantime the others arrived in front of us, panting after running all the way up the side of Hell. We had all been out of breathe just jogging but it looked like they had really made some haste to get there._

_Suddenly Gavin paid his way again. He started waving and he mouthed that there was something glinting in the bush. So now we went super slow and this time we started to go ahead. Our guns still at the ready. I don__'__t know how many times me and Lee headed off to what would have seemed like out demise. Kevin went a lot too._

_God bless Kevin, even though he__'__s pigheaded, I guess I shouldn__'__t be talking and can be a Grade A asshole he really is brave. When he took his breakdown, you can__'__t blame him he was brave before any of us had any idea the meaning of the word._

_When Corrie got shot there hadn__'__t been much discussion about what was going to happen if I remember right. He just got into the car and went for Wirrawee. Even thought he knew what was going to happen, he knew that he was going to get captured and or killed he still did it and that was damn brave if you ask me._

_Anyways we found Ryan roughly where we__'__d left him and he was looking genuinely ecstatic to see us. However there was a slight difference between the four teenagers that he__'__d watched disappeared in a fire fight and the group of people he saw right now. There were five teenagers now and four little kids in toe, this was one confrontation that was quite comical if it wasn__'__t under the terrible circumstance of the fact that we all might be about to die._

_He looked at the feral kids, dismayed at the sight of them, they were just more of a burden for him I guess, more to worry about more to keep a watch on. Or maybe this complicated his magic plan that he__'__d kept so secret from us the whole time._

_We opened one of the secret packs and found what we__'__d been craving for so long, actual food! Fresh bread, avocados, even though I hate them, Weet-Bix, two big 710 ml bottles of Diet Pepsi, yes even Pepsi had been rationed in New Zealand I__'__m sorry to say, ration the calories! Aside from that there were three big packs of the little bit sized Kit Kats and some Iced Vo-Vos and a little plastic bottle of Vegemite, yummy and I mean that._

_We couldn__'__t stay there any longer but we needed the food so badly. I looked at Lee and we both tried to ration it out, although Ellie got first grabs. That__'__s one thing about Lee, no matter how badly she treats him he still loves her and he always has._

_Then we handed it out in fists at a time. I made sure that all the kids got at least three swigs of the Diet Pepsi to bring their energy levels up, even though it was sugarless and made them each eat three Kit-Kats, I may not be the smartest but I know that if your blood sugar is low you__'__re better off dead when you__'__re being hunted._

_Then I let Lee take what he could scrape off the bottom and I took the last little bit, not noticing the other compartment that was still filled. I stuck everything I could into my hoodie pockets and then I shoved the rest into my Levi pockets, hoping that the Kit-Kats wouldn__'__t melt in there._

_Me and Ellie took the lead and we made the long jog downwards. It was a nice feeling being able to run downhill wasn__'__t as tiring, but we still had to focus and by God it was hard and by God it was hard to eat and run and watch and look at Ellie and look back make sure that we weren__'__t all being taken out one by one._

_Another problem that came up was hat Gavin was in a terrible sulk, probably because he__'__d missed some of the action the little sadistic bastard and he wouldn__'__t go near Ryan._

_Any food that was passed from Ryan to him wouldn__'__t be accepted, it had to come through me which wasn__'__t all that hot for me but what can you do? The kids were all very superstitious as well, it had been over a year since they had met any adults on their side, maybe even longer than that since they had had the safety of being able to eat food without worry of being poisoned that was another plus._

_Jack was being a little show off and being a dickhead, trying to be smart trying to get jokes and laughter, but that didn__'__t come. A couple of hard looks and some shushing and he shut his mouth and bit his lip._

_Ryan was trying to redeem himself and that wasn__'__t coming easy in my books. I was still bitter to him for being such a dick, if he was only here for a night then he could tell us a little more, like how the war was going. I would have really liked to have known that we were gaining ground, losing it anything to push me on._

_Morning started to come on and it was getting brighter and brighter. Our jog had changed from a jog to a run and then a sprint to a sprint from a sprint to an exhausted stumble that was less than a jog._

_We had to stop and with Ryan being the little comedian pulling up the rear we knew that it was time. It was almost fully bright out, but we were far away from the mountains. In Nellie__'__s paddock with a view 360 for miles around. Our biggest worry coming from the sky, that wonderful bright azure blue sky. It made me think of the Italians and their sports uniforms all being the same colour of the sky._

_We stopped in this little bit of bush, all mushy and kind of brownish green, nothing too exciting or happy about it. We were right near a creek. We had all just plunked ourselves down with groans of relief and sorrow when Ryan said that he wanted the kids to be gone._

_So me and Kevin stood up slowly and led them off down to the creek. There was a lot of moaning and groaning. __"__Do we have to go down to the creek?__"____"__Why?__"____"__I__'__m cold!__"____"__I__'__ve got a cramp from running!__"____"__I want to stay with you guys!__"_

_But it was Gavin who said the most sentimental thing I__'__ve ever heard out of him._

"_I don__'__t want us to be separated you mean too much to us to lose you.__"_

"_I__'__ll only be a few secs Gavin, don__'__t worry this Ryan bloke he__'__s gone tonight, not a big problem.__"_

_Gavin got angry then and stomped off down the creek and there was a tremendous crash as some rocks and dead trees came splashing into the water. I just about died but Gavin saw me and Kevin about to round on him and he slipped down behind a big boulder and just stayed there._

_Ellie had given them some paper and pens and they were going to make stories and pictures in our sight. Gavin was just behind a rock and we could still see his head and his ears so we were all ready to listen to what Ryan had to say. _

_He started with a little rant about how top secret this had to be. Alright, now I was starting to get pissed off, just tell us the bloody well reason you__'__re here so we can get on with ours lives in whatever manner Colonel Finley had decided we had to live it._

_Then he started with __"__If you get caught __…"__ Jesus H. Christ if I get caught there isn__'__t going to be much use in me telling them that I__'__m just a little innocent school boy who__'__s escaped capture for a year without doing jack, just sitting in the woods playing with sticks and stones and maybe, well I__'__m not going there._

_The second line of defence when under interrogation was to say that he had landed here via chopper and given us some assignments, like nick this from a store or something, but he never actually told us how or why we had to do it._

_The third line was to tell them what we were doing only change the details, only problem with that is if we all got caught and we all changed the details differently we__'__d be standing in front of the firing squad humming Waltzing Matilda right before we get our head blown off._

_The last line was to tell them everything, oh that was just magnificent advice, yes __"__I__'__m sorry Mr. Invader, I was trying to kill you, let__'__s go eat gummy bears and hug and play on the beach together while the sunsets and live happily ever after in our rainbow coloured castle.__"_

_God I__'__ve been telling Natalie and Casey to many bedtime stories. Anyways the point is that if we got to that point we__'__d have to hold of for as long as we could and then, then finally tell them. Which would do absolutely nothing for us, we__'__d still be out tied to a poll humming Waltzing Matilda before getting our heads blown off._

_Then we had to repeat all four points over again so that he was sure we__'__d absorbed it all._

_Then he gave us a little briefing about what was happening. He said that there was a lot of international pressure being put on the enemy and a lot of aid starting to flow, especially from Sweden and France and Japan, that was encouraging at least we weren__'__t all alone. The Americans and I can only assume the Canadians must have been contributing as well. He talked about faulty intelligence being planted for the enemy and that they were about to do their big attack, their D-Day, all or nothing. The Kiwis were going for broke!_

_Ryan didn__'__t like that term __"__broke,__"__ it was more that if they failed it would be catastrophic and that it would end the war. Yeah Ryan that makes broke look like a good thing, like broke is what you want in comparison to the end of us all. But we didn__'__t give him the satisfaction of seeing the shocked looks that he was expecting._

_After a few moments silence I said, __"__So we__'__re one of the resources huh?__"_

_Ryan replied something about it being a little bit harsh but yes that was exactly what we were, thank you Colonel Finley. Dirty bastard trying to get us killed after all we__'__d done, but mind you he was still sore about us losing his commandoes, or maybe I should say some of us losing the commandoes. I wasn__'__t there I didn__'__t wreck it for them, but that__'__s being too harsh on Ellie actually it was probably them wrecking it on themselves but Colonel Finley couldn__'__t admit to a mistake! Hell no!_

_Anyways Ryan told us what we were supposed to do. The crate and supplies and stuff were for attacking the enemy and living off the land. That was another thing, God damn it were we not supposed to live? Was that it? Mind you I wouldn__'__t want it any other way._

_Ryan explained that he wanted us to be mobile guerrillas, picking our own targets, attacking them and then disappearing. Alright that__'__s good. Then he explained that if we created chaos from behind then they__'__d not attack at the front as hard. That sounded like something we could accomplish, I was already thinking of places where we could hit._

_A gas station, a railway, a road, a hospital would really shatter things, really piss them off and it__'__d be pretty low. A factory, a power station anything and everything was coming into my mind and I was forgetting being mortal and forgetting that I could die doing these things, then Ryan started talking again and I snapped back into the conversation._

_I said something about us being totally destructive and thought back a few years to when this would have sounded like so much fun. Ryan explained that in the crates we had some things like automatic weapons, M16__'__s, grenades, plastic explosives, combat knives and stuff like this. We were now a completely offensive outfit._

_Fi said something about not wanting to carry explosives around and Ryan went to into one of the packs and dug out a box that was stuffed into the bag and sort of bend and wrecked. He opened it up and showed us two big long things that looked like play dough in salami form wrapped in plastic wrap. __"__Plastic explosives.__"_

_Ryan suddenly slipped up with one and jumped backwards!_

"_Mother of God!__"__ He screamed._

_I dove down a bank and rolled and ripped open my elbow and God did that hurt. I kept rolling and hit a tree, which hurt my back like hell and then I listened for the sound of an explosion and crash a thump a scream and bang? Anything? Bloody anything?_

_Laughter!_

_Laughter!_

_Laughter!_

_Ryan is a douche bag! I don__'__t know why I rolled like that, there was nothing to set off the explosives but we were all so jumpy and because none of us were really keyed in to what was happening well I guess it was just a reaction._

_Lee was emerging from some rocks by the creek. Kevin was coming back out of the clearing. Fi emerged from a tree right behind Ryan, if the explosion had been real she and Ryan would have been dead. Ellie was a little bit farther down than I was. We all slowly started back to where we had been._

_I gave Ryan the hardest glare I had ever given him and decided that moment if it wasn__'__t murder I would have walked over kicked him in the face and then put my foot and his neck, I was pissed and tired and worn out and not in the mood for tricks. Unless I was playing them._

_Then Ryan punched the stuff and then he looked at Fi __"__Does this answer your question?__"_

_Asshole you didn__'__t need to try and kill us to show us that it was safe. Bastard, in a way I hoped that he__'__d fall out of the helicopter that night, but then we__'__d have to help so I wanted him to get away._

_Next Kevin asked if anything made it blow up._

_I said __"__Of course something makes it go off it__'__s a bomb, isn__'__t it?__"_

_Kevin gave me a hard glare, but it had been a stupid question, of course it goes off it wouldn__'__t be a bomb if it didn__'__t. Or maybe Kevin thought that if he asked it nicely it would explode. God sometimes Kev!_

_Ryan took out plain detonators, little silver ones that looked like .303 shells. Of course they weren__'__t but at first glance you wouldn__'__t know it. Then he took out a fuse wire rolled up, about fifty metres of it. Then he handed us all the Zippo lighters that never go out until you click the cap back on._

_He second little pressie was new watches for all of us, all ticking and all on exactly the same second. It was wonderful and they were digital with timers and everything under the sun, real watches._

_Finally he took out explosive pliers, one side was metal and the other rubber to stop the two from touching and creating a spark and killing us all which would have helped a heap in Cobbler__'__s Bay._

_Then we spent the next hour, fifteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds learning about guerrilla fighting and tactics. I timed it on my new watch and I must admit that he was really good with this stuff, it showed that he was a professional even though he was a jack ass at times._

_He taught us about the Pimlott Principals. The guy who create his principals had killed himself on his own backyard fiddling around with a hand grenade showing his kids how easily the pin could come out and boom he goes skyward in pieces and his kids are wheeled to hospital with serious injures and a few of them carted off to a mental institution because of it, good job Dad. You are truly a Dad of the year here__'__s your medal._

_Anyways the principals went like this. Achieve surprise, alright I__'__ll jump out of the bushes and scream that I__'__m the boogie man and get my head blown off. Build momentum, meaning run as hard as you can and keep attacking so they don__'__t have time to re-group and finally go for objectives you can achieve. Oh alright so attacking an airbase without any weapons or blowing up a carrier with anfo or blowing a bridge with a petrol tanker or, well the list goes on, should be within in reach so I guess using that scale we should nuke the bastards and then walk around riddling everyone that moves afterwards, alright then. Then finally you have to do all this on the centre of the gravity of the enemy._

_Fi asked where the enemy__'__s centre of gravity was._

"_Cavendish.__"__ Ryan replied._

_Cavendish, a little flat town not very big about 20,000 people nothing amazing about it. But it had a massive transport system because it wasn__'__t far from the big ports and because if you were coming from the coast to the south you would have to bypass Cavendish and that was a big thing considering that Stratton__'__s greater area was something like 100,000 people. It was huge!_

_Anyways Cavendish was supposed to be a really nice quiet town, but I was already thinking of things we could do to make it a little less quiet and a little less peaceful._

_So finally after a few hours of Ryan ranting and raving about the whole guerrilla project the big question came. Ellie said yes and then went to check on the children._

_For me the question was an easy one, I wanted to do something even though inside me I hated to think about more of this kind of stuff. But at the same time I didn__'__t want to look like a coward if we ever got liberated. And I don__'__t know if I could live with myself if I decided that I wouldn__'__t do anything to try and save my country from the invaders._

_So in the end my answer was yes, not that big of a shock for anyone in the group._

_When Ellie came back she had changed her mind she was out of the whole situation unless Ryan took the kids with him. This wasn__'__t so hot with Ryan let me tell you._

_Ryan suggested that they wait a day and then they surrender to the enemy, but that wouldn__'__t work. I couldn__'__t picture Gavin simply strolling up to the nearest checkpoint and raising his hands up and saying, __"__All right you got me, Homer, Ellie, Lee, Fi and Kevin are long gone and they are the ones you__'__re looking for.__"__ No it just wouldn__'__t happen and I knew that I was going to have to point this out._

_Then Ellie said that it would be hard enough to get them into the chopper let alone get them to surrender and I backed and was ready to change my vote in order to get the others to stop sitting around looking stunned and do something._

_Ryan wouldn__'__t let that happen he wasn__'__t going to baby-sit little children in a chopper obviously. That really pissed me off, I mean he was asking a lot from us already and now he couldn__'__t find it in his heart to take four kids on a chopper for half an hour, Jesus Christ get real Ryan you__'__re wasting your breathe and energy trying to get us to back out now._

_Finally though after Ellie closed her mouth crossed her arms and put her hip out in her sexy way, sorry couldn__'__t help that, Ryan realised that there wasn__'__t anyway out of it._

_He tried to protest that they__'__d be in almost as much danger on the helicopter as with us but me and Ellie weren__'__t taking that shit._

_Finally he just said __"__Colonel Finley__'__s going to kill me.__"_

_We had him! We had him, the little monkeys would be on their way to New Zealand that night and they__'__d be safe and we would be a little bit more threatening to the enemy._

_I watched them get some admiration from Ellie and then trot over in searching chocolate and some Iced Vo-Vos. I gave Jack a pat on the head and he showed me his picture of a big guy with a little guy on his shoulders and said to me._

"_The big guy is you Homer and the little guy is me.__"_

_I smiled and just about cried, I just about cried. I realised then how much I loved that kid how much I loved all of them I that I never wanted to part with them I never wanted to say good-bye to them I wanted to keep telling Casey and Natalie bedtime stories after Ellie had tucked them in and told them on of hers. I wanted to still teach them how to aggravate the girls and teach them about the bush and run around with them and tickle them and be kind to them and teach them math with my bad math teaching skills. All of those things I wanted to keep being Big Daddy Homer, but I realised that now I didn__'__t have a choice anymore. I couldn__'__t be Big Daddy Homer and Rambo Homer._

_I had to chose and I knew right now that I had to be Rambo Homer that I had to try and help win this war by doing my little tiny part and I knew that if I had to chose between parting with them and having them being taken by the enemy and maybe killed or beaten. Or sending them off to safety and freedom until the end of this war then I would chose to send them away. Maybe someday I would see them again, maybe someday they would be the leader of our nation of a big sports star on an actress in America, that was Casey__'__s dream and by God I wanted to help her with that dream, but when I thought about the danger and the death and the destruction that we were going to go through and inflict I knew that for once I had only one choice and I knew that for once it was going to rip me apart and hurt me in ways that I had always said never would._

_And funnily for the first time in my life I didn__'__t care what people thought about my feelings. I loved those kids._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

When we told them all that they had to go with Ryan the reaction was the worst one I've seen in the war. They went insane with sorrow and, in Gavin's case, fury.

Natalie grabbed onto Fi and wouldn't let go, she just clung and clung figuring that if she held onto Fi we'd change our minds. Casey wandered over to a tree and leaned into it face first with her good arm wrapped around here. Jack just slowly fell to his knees and hugged himself and started whimpering. But Gavin, well Gavin really lost it.

He ran furiously out into the middle of the clearing and picked up a huge solid fallen branch and heaved it up, with all of his might and charged straight at me. I jumped out of the way. Gavin went by with a furious scream and then he spun around to try again and got his battering ram stuck between two trees.

So Gavin, little bastard, ran over and started kicked our packs. Ellie and I made a break for the packs to try and stop him. Ellie was worried the explosives would explode and I was worried that the Kit-Kats would be ruined.

Ryan beat us both to it picking up Gavin in one big swoop. But Gavin fought back kicking and punching and biting. He got Ryan square in the nose and then poked him in the eye and kicked him in the crotch and finally he bit his forearm before I could grab his arms and we could pin him to the ground.

Ryan started to talk to Gavin in a clam and patient tone telling him to calm down and be sensible. But of course none of us told Ryan that Gavin was deaf so his calm words were wasted, his words fell on deaf ears!

Oh God that was a bad joke but I could not resist and when you have not had much to laugh about it is really funny.

Gavin squirmed and kicked and screamed and cursed and spit for about five minutes until finally he went rigid and he was finished of his tantrum for now.

So we got together for a few seconds to decided what to do. We could have shouting matches with them all day and Gavin would still be fighting with us, so we decided that having two or three of them on board and ready to leave was better than none.

So we looked at each other and each of us was going to take the child that liked us the most. Ellie got Casey, Fi got Natalie, Lee got Jack, because the two of them were good mates at times and because Lee and Gavin often fought over the littlest of things and I got Gavin.

So we each walked back to them and got ready for the worst. I went with Gavin down to the creek and we sat there together. He was sulking and anger and fuming. I looked at Gavin and he looked at me.

"Listen Gavin, I don't know what to do mate." Gavin just sat there looking furious. "You're like my little brother and I really do care for you. But well, ah God I can't give you this cute and sappy stuff. I'm just going to give it to you straight. The Kiwis are going to launch this huge attack and try and win the war. Me and Ellie and Lee and Fi and Kevin have to go off we have to go away and try and help them. Now I'm not saying we don't need you and I'm not saying you're a bother I'm saying that if we had the others as well as you we wouldn't be able to do what we needed to do. And if we can't do that then we'll never win our country back and you'll never see you sister and your mother again. That's why we're sending you away to New Zealand, so that we can get the country back." I said realising that I sounded like G.I. Joe. "And we need you to lead the others, keep them together and safe in New Zealand and besides think about all the stuff you can do there."

"Like what?" Gavin asked furiously.

"Like watch TV go to McDonalds run around play outside, get into trouble, sleep in a proper bed as well as being in New Zealand and seeing what that's like."

Gavin turned his head and spat into the creek and then picked up a rock and skipped it five times across the creek. I picked up one skipped it three times and then looked at him and smiled. He looked at me harshly and said.

"If I'm like your little brother and you love me and all that then why are you sending me away? If we're like family we should stick together and besides I want to help free the country as well. I don't think I could be happy if I didn't."

I looked at him for a minute wondering what would change his mind as he picked up a big rock and heaved it into the creek making some birds down stream screech and fly off.

Finally I came to a decision.

"Gavin listen mate, you don't have a choice, you just have to get onto the copter, you have to keep the others safe and together, you don't have a choice anymore. Remember saying that you wanted to know what it was like to be a soldier? Well this is what it is like, you don't like it, I don't like it but you have to do it. You don't have a choice."

He looked at me as if he was going to hit me. Then he spoke about it again.

"I never will be a soldier because I'm deaf."

"Listen Gavin, I want you to go home and be safe and be alive. Listen Gavin you can help the war effort in New Zealand, you can go to war rallies and you can gather Coke cans to make into planes, but Gavin I want you to get to safety.

"I know you want to help, I know you want to fight as well, but think about it. If you go to New Zealand then you get everyone to safety, maybe you'll find your families and that would be heroic Gavin, soldiers take people to safety, until the war that's what they usually did.

"And Gavin this next little while is going to be hard, I mean really hard. All this walking we did this morning, it'll be about ten times that. We're going to be moving and doing dangerous things and if we have to worry about the other three then it'll be harder and we won't be able to do stuff as well. If we can't do stuff as well and do as much damage then we might not win the war. Do you see what I'm saying?"

Gavin nodded his head in a sad surrender, as if he was saying, "Alright I give in, I give up, I'll go to New Zealand."

When we came into the clearing Casey stormed up to Ryan and kicked him angrily in the shin. I smiled weakly and suddenly we were packing our packs once more, things were being taken from the packs, things we didn't need and they were being replaced with more useful things.

Lee and I were packing our things quickly and chatting quietly as the girls packed on the other side of the clearing, Kevin was watching the kids and Ryan was up a tree looking through his binoculars and watching silently.

Suddenly we were on the topic of the girls and Lee was saying how Ellie hated him now.

"She hasn't been the same for a long time." He said mournfully.

"Well," I said thinking quietly as a pushed a folded pair of undies into my pack, "She's weird like that Lee, she gets into one of her little ruts and hr tires spin until the engine dies and she goes and sleeps for a while."

"Homer she's never forgiven me since I was with that girl Reni."

"Yeah I know, she's been a bitch about that."

"I never said a thing after that thing with the Kiwi guy Adam." Said Lee, his voice cutting like a knife in the humid air that hung around us.

I remembered silently her night with Adam. She went to a party in New Zealand, alone. Wouldn't let us go with her and that's what happened, had I not been a mess then I would have killed him. I would have found him and cut his balls off.

Lee and Ellie were closer to being involved, a couple, then than they were when Lee went off with Reni. Well actually, Ellie had been a bitch to Lee ever since he had killed that man with a belt.

Ellie's odd at times, she knew we had no other choice and I mean Christ, she's killed just as much as anyone else, but if you did the same thing she did to Lee she'd throw a bitch fit and go clean clipping crazy.

She basically pushed Lee away, she slept with him and then she pushed him away, all because he killed a man with a belt. Just because he did something to basically save her.

I looked at Lee as he pushed his new M4 rifle, new from America, with the folding stock into his pack. He looked up after making sure that the safety was locked in place.

I looked at him for a moment then spoke, "You really love her don't you."

"More than anyone else on the face of the Earth." Said Lee tears forming in his eyes, "And she hates me."

"She doesn't hate you Lee, you've just tested her trust." I said looking at him for a moment then sliding my own M4 rifle into my pack.

I didn't know how to feel about Lee and Ellie, he loved her, she loved him but I still didn't want Ellie to be gone. She was my sister, she was, I loved her in a way though that was different than a sister or a lover. I love her in such a difficult and annoying way that its impossible to explain.

We were almost finished packing when we came to the condoms. Lee looked at me and I looked at Lee and smiled and laughed a little.

"How many did we start off with?" Asked Lee looking at me.

"Kev said that he brought two packs of 12 into hell with him on the first week, before the war and that he left with nine." I said smiling broadly, Lee smiling as well, then we remembered Corrie silently, before she died. "Then on the next trip in during the war he had 21 going in and when Corrie got shot he gave the pack he had on him and told me where the other pack was." We were smiling like 12 year-olds now. "I six condoms from him and then the other pack with 12 in it."

Lee looked at me and smiled, laughing slightly.

"You and Ellie went through them pretty damn fast, the new pack and were down to two. Then the little bastards in Stratton stole those two, probably thought they were balloons. Leaving me with these." I said smiling.

He took the bent and batter cardboard box of condoms and opened it up, there were four.

"I thought you said that Kev gave you a pack with six."

"He did, I've got two in my wallet."

Lee smiled and we laughed and he handed me the box back again.

"You'll need them more then I will." Said Lee, smiling broadly.

I just shook my head and I slide some more plastic explosive into the side pockets of my pack. Then Lee spoke again,

"Homer I don't think we're going to make it through the next little while."

"What?" I asked looking up at him.

"We aren't soldiers," He said nodding his head at Ryan and all of the weapons spread out around us. "We aren't the US Marines. I don't want to kill anymore, I don't want to do this anymore. I want the war to end, I want my parents to be there though. I don't want the war to end. I don't know what I want but I do. I want Ellie. Ellie means more to me then anything else, she is why I keep going. When I'm exhausted and my mind is screaming at me and telling me no, that I can't go on any longer, I just think of her and she drives me on."

It seemed to me that Lee's passion towards Ellie was so fierce, so strong that he was willing to do more than humanly possible, Lee loved her more than anyone else, well apart from his little ankle biting siblings, she was the only thing he had left. She was his only link to a better time, to a time when he was alright, when things were normal, when he still had a life.

At nightfall we set off, pulling on our gear, putting on the bulging packs like you used to see in on the ABC News at 6 talking about the Americans in Iraq and the Canadians in Afghanistan.

We set out and immediately I knew that something was up. I went to take a piss off in the bushes about one hundred fifty metres from everyone else at the other side of the clearing and to make sure that everything was alright.

I undid my zipper and took a nice long leak and did my pants up then exhaled a long breathe and looked around the area. I could see in the dense bush and the closing darkness, just about nothing, but I thought I saw something, a boot, a helmet with leaves glued on for camouflage.

But I doubted it, if they knew where we were the whole time then why would they had waited? Unless they were looking for the landing zone. Then again it was probably just a group of soldiers sent to follow us and pick us off one by one.

But I couldn't be sure. I took a few steps and left the relative cover of the bushes and put my back against a tree. I took out my torch and shone it in on the bushes, watching and I saw nothing, just my imagination or soldiers hiding well.

I was nervous but I didn't let anyone else know, I didn't think it would be worth it. The soldiers were obviously taking their time, obviously waiting for something I just hoped we could lose them before they became a problem.

I went back to the group and we headed out. In a slack formation, not really paying attention and I was distant, thinking about Lee and Ellie and how they should be together, how she should be melting in his arms, how they should be together.

Then my mind flicked to the soldiers I thought I saw and I noticed Ellie walking a few metres away looking at me and I decided that now was my chance. She was nearing the end of her tether, she was tired and annoyed, she would be getting pissed off by now and now would be the time to warn her of what I thought I saw, what I thought the problem was.

"I think we're heading into big trouble."

"Why do you think that?" She asked looking at me, wide eyed.

"Male intuition."

Which set her off and we sniped and argued for the next half hour until she stopped and suddenly she called us together and we all got into proper strict formation, like the Kiwi SAS had taught her in their all knowing God-like wisdom.

Ellie had me on the left, the ridge was on the right and the moon had sunk below that. On the left was bushes galore and the danger of soldiers suddenly came to mind and I wondered if we were being followed again.

When I think back to the opening months of the war all I could remember was how innocent we'd been how good we'd been at planning how well things had gone, how lucky we were.

Now I wondered if we were losing our cool. We had taken a major hit when we lost Robyn. Robyn, that still hurts me. I didn't like Robyn, she'd been a silent leader, morally she was the most courageous person I have ever known. Without her we were drifting ever closer to the sadistic murderers that she had feared we were going to all become.

I especially feel terrible about not seeing what a great person she was before she died. Having my doubts about the Christian morals and beliefs. She was the strongest of us all, by far without her we were wandering in the dark.

When Ellie didn't lead us, when I didn't lead us, she had led us and now with her dead and Ellie and I slowly losing our focus, or at least I could feel it starting to happen and now I look back and I know that we'd lost our way ever since she'd died. Without Robyn we were wandering like we were now.

I thought of the people we'd lost. Chris had been a stoner, an alright guy at times and good at being himself and different and a genius, but at the same time he was dead weight. If he had survived long enough I'm not sure if he'd be better off. He'd be more into the drugs and more into the grog then ever before.

Corrie would probably have been one of the strongest and had she survived then she would have been a big help. She probably would have loved the kids and maybe Kevin would have been able to show his bravery in a more vicious manner and maybe just maybe, Kevin would be more stable mentally.

I wonder what kind of leader Robyn would have been should she had survived. I think she would have been the leader at this point, now Ellie or me. Well really Ellie was our leader. My decision to take the shotgun to Buttercup Lane, well I still don't really understand what was wrong with that.

Chris and I would have been dead and we were attacking them with Molotov Cocktails for Christ sake, we were using weapons and killing anyways.

My mind jerked back into reality, like when you switch gears in Ellie's Landie. We were drifting to the left slightly, we were going to go in circles. I suddenly saw Ellie leaving the back, speeding up to a slow jog to get in front of everyone in up to Lee.

I began to drift to the back slightly to cover our backs, just in case. Soon Lee came plodding back towards me and looked at me.

"There's something about this," He said quietly, "I think we're being followed."

"I get that feeling as well."

"They want the helicopter."

"What do you mean?" I asked looking at him for a moment.

"The Kiwis aren't the Americans, they don't have millions of copters at their disposal and right now helicopters weren't at the top of the priority list." He trailed off.

I was about to go to the left side again when Lee said.

"I think they got the helicopter last night."

"What?" I asked looking at him shocked.

"Last night when I went up the track to Tailor's Stitch and looked out there was this blazing fire. Or three fires, one was big, another was little and the third looked like it was burning brush."

At that I went back to my spot and thought about it slowly in my mind.

It would make sense the enemy wanted to take down as many Kiwis as they could. It would be a major blow. I can remember being in New Zealand and Colonel Finley saying something to the pilot of the helicopter about being extremely careful. That the Kiwis only had 105 helicopters and they needed all of them.

Maybe that had changed. Still the Kiwis were going for broke, they needed everyman they could get. Everyone woman they could get. I got the feeling that the Kiwis were putting a push on right now because they were broke. If they didn't get something back in the next few months then they were kaput as well.

I thought about it quietly. The Kiwis were going to be in tough, real tough. I could only picture them, just this little force storming onto the beaches, machine guns blazing, paratroopers falling from the sky, the big guns in the south firing like hell the tanks rolling across the plains and the enemy being right there stopping them cold everywhere.

Then I thought about our job. If we could take 100 soldiers away from the front that was good. If we could kill 20, wound 100 and keep 300 off of the frontlines that was quite a big number. If we could do little things, although that isn't little, the enemy would be in trouble, big trouble.

I thought about it, the Kiwis had already landed, already gained some of our land back and seemed to be pretty good and holding the line. The enemy probably wasn't doing too much. That was also something depressing. What if the enemy was just sitting and waiting, waiting for the huge push put on by the Kiwis and then, boom, they hit back ten times harder beat them back in one huge assault and then they invaded New Zealand.

I was starting to forget what I was supposed to be doing. The Kiwis were facing their own doom on our soil. That meant something to me, at least they had honoured the alliances, their pacts. Where were the Americans? Why weren't they landing on ever beach with their tanks spread out flying across out plains flattening the enemy?

I came to the gate where we entered to area of the landing zone. Kevin and I closed in towards each other blocking off the others. Had the soldiers prepared an ambush everyone would have been dead, there was no where we could have run. Kev and I would have been dead before we could get to the other side of the fence.

I left the gate fro Lee to close, like Ellie. We kept walking, close together, I was sure that we were being followed now. I was so sure and then I saw Ellie begin to teeter and then suddenly fall backwards.

There were a few seconds and the tall grass moved and bent all the time. I took a few steps forward. Everyone else was moving towards Ellie, then came my own little bit of horror.

I tripped over a soldier myself, he was asleep when I tripped over him and Lee was the only one who noticed me go down to the ground. He was in a spot, Ellie was on the ground, Ryan and Fi closing in the children in the safety of Kevin's arms as he backed them away to the nearest cover. Lee was rushing forward.

The soldier was waking, his large machine gun had been placed on a tripod. I was getting to my feet when he got to his knees and tackled me. I fell backwards onto my pack and his machine gun. He was pushing at me and I could hear Lee approaching, there was a groan and slight yell from near Ellie and Lee's head looked over and he took a step towards her.

Suddenly he saw Ryan and Fi pulling her away, the body must have been taken away. Still no one was paying attention to what was happening to me. I rolled the guy onto his back beside the machine gun.

The guy rolled me again to the left and now he was about to kill me, his knife appeared in the moonlight like a glimmering star. He was lifting it and then suddenly Lee's boot intervened and there was a crack from the man's wrist. I pushed him off in that instant.

The man rolled and was about to scream, I stood for a moment and saw Ellie. I looked at the man, he had rolled into a little drainage ditch. I took a step forward and dove in, putting my hand over his throat and cutting off his ability to yell. Ellie was struggling to her feet.

Lee had disappeared, I looked at the man and swatted the pistol away from him and then I took the knife fro myself. I got up and ran off after the others, regretting instantly my mistake. He let out a scream.

We were running uphill at an extremely fast pace and I had caught up, a whistle blew. We sprinted for about 10 to 20 minutes and going uphill that was not an easy task.

Then we came to a halt, Lee and the kids had somehow found each other and they arrived from some bushes on the right. Kev came in from the left, Fi, Ryan and Ellie were in a little group and I arrived.

Lee whipped out the radio and Ryan turned the dial to the exact frequency within five seconds turned on the radio and then he spoke into it, told the helicopter that we were heading for the back-up location about six kilometres away according to Ellie.

Casey gave a little moan and Ryan assigned me to take the lead. Ellie was shook up, her face was showing that she was terrified and I was in a state myself. I was still thinking about my little run in with the soldier. Funny how our two stories are very similar, apart from the fact that I didn't kill this time, unlike last time.

Ryan warned us to keep an eye on each other, but he looked at me and told me to keep my eyes on where we were going, nothing else, lead us to the landing point. I listened to him, shook my head yes and then went to the front.

Suddenly, when I looked back about two kilometres into our trek there was no Ellie. I called a halt and gathered everybody around.

I asked, "Where the hell is she?"

Ryan looked at me with a face full of annoyance. He saw this as another hurtle to stop him from being safe. I noticed he was still shaking and that there was some blood on the front of his jacket. He had killed the soldier on Ellie.

Lee looked at me, I could see the tears of anger, frustration and complete and utter desolation of possibly losing her forever welling up inside him. The little ones didn't know either. Gavin looked at me rose his eyebrows and shook his head in a sort of flustered disbelief. He liked Ellie more than she figured I think and I know he liked us more than we gave him credit for.

When no one knew where she was I came to a conclusion quite quickly.

"She knows the way, she's just fallen behind or gone in a slightly different direction, so we'll keep going to the landing spot alright, it's at Breakfast Creek where the river becomes a Y." I said, everyone nodding, including Gavin who was sitting right next to me so he could lip read. "We keep going and if we get separated follow your compass on your watch and go Southeast, you'll come to it eventually."

Everyone nodded again and we set out, into the complete darkness. We kept moving, kept going, moving quickly through the woods, keeping an eye and an ear open and waiting for Ellie to reappear.

In the dense part of the brush things became troubling, three times we stopped, thinking we heard the soldiers and two times an enemy helicopter went roaring overhead. They were using everything they had to find us now.

It was during the second little helicopter zooming over we got separated, we all went in different directions and when we came out none of us knew where we were. I managed to find Fi, Jack and Natalie, but that was it.

When I found Fi we shared a moment that made her feelings distinct. She looked at me in the almost pitch black and she hugged me, tight around the waist and she looked up at me.

I bent my head to the side slightly and we kissed, her tongue gently slid into my mouth and then we heard the slight crack of a tree branch and we ducked for cover. We slid behind a tree, I was laying on top of her, protecting her in a way.

It was Jack and Natalie, Jack leading the way, trembling like a leaf about to fall from a tree. We came out and the two of them just about jumped from their skins.

I smiled at both of them and then we started out again, minus Ellie, Lee, Ryan, Gavin and Casey. I thought about that, our numbers were rapidly shrinking. I could only wonder if we were being picked off one by one in the night. I had never heard any gunshots, so I doubted it.

We kept going to Breakfast Creek, trying to get there on time. Moving quickly, moving hastily, without caution. I was going to get my rifle out, just in case, but Fi told me not to, I could shoot Ellie or one of the others without even knowing it.

I took her advice and left my rifle in my pack. Then I heard something, something was running, like water, like the creek! My whole body got a new life and I began to move forward with a little spring in my step.

We came right in by the intersection of the two creeks. I smiled as we slid down the little banks, helping Jack back onto his feet after he lost balance. I looked up and down the creek in the misty dark and suddenly felt the cold cutting to the bone, but I had no idea why?

All I could feel was that I was shivering and I was holding it in. Suddenly I just about tripped over Ellie and realised that she hadn't already noticed me. She looked so still and, and at peace.

Ellie said that I gave her a punch in the arm, more of a frantic jerk of her arm. She looked around groggily and I smiled an extremely relieved smile, "Great lookout you are?"

U paused for a second and watched as Fi sat down on a stump and Natalie crawled onto her lap and pushed her face into her shoulder, as little ones do. Then Jack sat there looking around nervously.

I was really going to miss these kids. But the alternative was incredibly simple, they were dead. I would rather them fly away to New Zealand and never see them again, but know that they were alive, then have them dead and never see them again but know that they weren't doing anything good with their lives.

"Have you seen the others?" Already knowing the grim answer.

"No," She looked at Fi and the two kids and looked the other way and there was a sudden urgency in her voice as well. "Haven't you got them with you?" Terror was her only emotion as she spoke that statement.

I looked at her and calmed myself enough to say, "I have Natalie and Jack and Fi. But I'm buggered if I know what happened to the others. One minute they were there the next they were gone."

Ellie was frightened, nervous and she knew it and I knew it. I knelt down momentarily in case there were enemy soldiers who had their crosshairs on me and I looked at her.

You know Ellie is nervous when she crosses her legs and puts her hands between her legs, near the knees for all you perverts who thought of something else. She also bites her lip, it's kind sexy. I pointed that out to Lee and he smiled a wide smile.

"That's not the only time she does that." He had said raising his eyebrows twice and smiling.

Ellie was doing both right now. She saw me looking at her and she did the third thing that she does when her nervousness goes to frantic fear, she tries to break your gaze and switch the topic, keep talking, keep the conversation going at an impossibly rapid pace.

"Twenty-minutes before the helicopter."

"What are we going to do if it comes and they aren't here?" I asked her waiting for an answer. What I had figured was that they would wait for Ryan until they absolutely had to leave, so I wasn't amazingly worried about that. Well I was but, it's a difficult situation.

"I guess we give them Natalie and Jack and then we start worrying about the others."

That's what I had figured and guess what, I was starting to worry about the others at this point. Suddenly I could hear the buzzing in the distance.

There's or ours? That's all I wanted to know. I watched as Ellie perked up, Fi and the kids cowering slightly into the relative safety of the creek banks.

"It's coming." I nodded, a whole bunch of smartass remarks flying into my head, but at the time I had other things to worry about.

The helicopter was right above us, I saw something move out at the end of the field. This was it, enemy or Lee? Enemy or Ryan? Enemy or the kids? All I could think was that in an instant we were all dead or most of us were going to safety.

I looked back for a second, the helicopter was right on top of us basically, it touched down gently and bounced slightly.

I saw them, or I saw Lee leading the way. Ryan was over to one side and the kids were in between. The helicopter had throttled back on the engines.

"Here they come!" I yelled, Ellie looking back at her face lighting up with joy.

Fi went to grab Jack and Natalie but they wouldn't have that, they ran over to me and grabbed onto me, hugging me, kissing me, well Natalie anyways. I looked as Lee came thundering towards us, Lee and Jack were the best of friends, it would be a shame if they didn't get to say good-bye and then Fi grabbed them and they were dashed off to the helicopter.

Lee pushed Casey forward, Ryan was running full tilt behind him. Lee gave her a little pat on the head and looked and gave a little wave to Jack, who waved back a tear running down his face, lit in green from the control panel in the cockpit.

Lee slid in beside me and looked at me, then lay on his back and breathed deeply. Ryan was running down towards the helicopter. He grabbed Casey, who was clinging to Ellie like a leech and he pushed her into the cabin and the helicopter began to lift off the ground.

It tilted a little in one direction and Ryan gave a sudden jerk and grabbed onto the bar inside of the helicopter and the helicopter began to zoom into the air, farther and farther up and then Ryan pulled himself into the helicopter.

A few seconds later they were a little black dot. But Lee looked at me and held up three fingers. I looked at him, tilted my head trying to figure out what he meant, I couldn't hear him.

"Gavin's missing." He said as the helicopter left.

"That piss head! Trying to stay here, little bastard."

"Do you think he's alright?" Asked Fi urgently.

"I think he's done it deliberately." Said Lee

"Well it doesn't matter now whether he has or not." I said furious, just when I thought I'd gotten rid of the bastard!

"We don't have time to look for him." Said Kevin as Ellie walked over to me, it suddenly hit me that he was there. I hadn't even noticed, I was more honed in on watching.

Kevin has done something brave though I must say, he had stopped and gone back a little when he realised Gavin was missing, just to try and find him. He could have been caught or killed, damn brave on his part.

"We don't have to." I said pointing menacingly towards the little shadow that came thumping up the field.

I was furious, I was going to kill him. I was going to knife him, I was so pissed angry I couldn't see straight. He trotted up and looked at us all.

"I got lost." He said, Fi was just about pissing herself, Ellie was trying not to and I was about to kill him.

Everyone started to laugh, Ellie and Fi really let go. Kevin was sitting down and he started to roll around he was laughing that hard. Lee turned away laughing like it was a joke that only he got. I shook my head, starting to laugh.

I grabbed his hair, enough for it to hurt.

"You're a liar." I said.

He smiled and slid his index finger across his lips, one of his signs for lying, I don't know if it's a deaf person sign or not, but oh well, it made me laugh and that was good. A little laughter only killed Laughing Bob, dead in the graveyard for laughing when a patrol came.

Everyone kinda undermined me by laughing, but I didn't really care. Gavin looked at everyone grinning and he said, "Let's go get 'em!"

If only I had the same enthusiasm to go and kill people.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter 5**_

_We left right away and went through the bog to get some more __"__equipment__"__. Another couple of M4 rifles, although Lee and I had taken ours out of the crates early. Why? We were curious, we had a little extra time, got there ahead of Ryan, stashed them in our packs that night and well, well, we had M4 rifles._

_Our packs were even more bloated and on the verge of exploding in rebellion. I took as much as I could to lighten the load on Ellie, Fi and Gavin especially because they seemed to be at the limit, not like Lee, Kev and I weren__'__t, but I figured that I had to keep going. It was like the Outward Bound, they taught the guys anyways that you push yourself more than the ones that you think are the best, you push and push and push until you are the strongest one._

_That__'__s what I was trying to do. Kevin was really carrying the most, but he always tried to anyways and he was the slowest right now, the weight was really getting to him. _

_We got to Ellie__'__s Grandma__'__s early the next morning. We were all tired and Gavin was starting to walk in zigzags he was lagging that much. We got into the house and I made a quick check around the house._

_The road seemed to be clear, safe, for now. I went up into the tree and saw that the city was still the same, large, expanding and full of soldiers. I went into the house and went upstairs with Lee to sort out the beddings._

_We raided the linen closet and found some clean sheets that Fi had done before we left the last time. Then we found some pillows around the house, some ragtag, some in pretty good shape. We had to chuck three, they were getting pretty rank and mouldy._

_We laid out the bedrooms. Lee and I got a room next to the stairs. We__'__d come to that decision by the fact that if the soldiers came up the stairs they__'__d search our room first, give the others a chance._

_We gave Ellie and Fi the room just down the hall from us, I think it was her grandmother__'__s room. Then we gave Kev and Gavin the room at the end of the hall._

_Fi had gotten first sentry, we came to the conclusion that a sentry was needed ASAP when the first patrol went rolling by, about six of them, with a few guys sitting on the sides, guns pointed at ready. All I could think was that if they weren__'__t so bleeding loud they__'__d run you down._

_Stupid, but the pressure and the stress of waiting for the large scale counter-invasion of our country was pressing on our nerves. Fi had taken a book and crawled up into the sentry tree._

_Lee went upstairs to draw, another one of his Satanic scenes, with burning babies, aliens and huge black beetles crawling across the landscape, no not John Lennon, but that__'__d be pretty frightening too if you ask me._

_So with Ellie wandering around the house looking angered, frightened, stressed and lost we began to rummage through the remains of the house. Looking for anything of interest. Old cooking magazines, old TV guide. The TV had long ago been taken, but the remote was lying under an old ripped recliner with one of the triple A batteries lying on the ground, along with some mouldy rice cakes._

_We found some tea coasters and even an old spatula, but that wasn__'__t helping us. I went into a little game drawer and started looking through the boards games and various pass times her grandmother had chuckled into the little forgotten storage space under the stairs._

_Battleship, no after Cobbler__'__s Bay I__'__d lost my interest in sinking battleships. Clue, I opened the box up and found that there was only the revolver and Professor Plum left in the box with the board. Monopoly, shit if we started that we__'__d be playing until after the war was over. Life? Hell no, I didn__'__t need to play a game about a golden life without regret or conscious bugging you all the time about all those dead soldiers you are responsible for._

_Then I found three old packs of decks, underneath a half smoked box of cigarettes. Granny had a little taste for the tobacco I guessed. Then I looked at the box, the writing was in a different language and it wasn__'__t that crumpled._

_It hadn__'__t been that long since they__'__d been here. I pulled the three packs of cards out. I could hear Kevin lying down on the old couch and Gavin asking him a barrage of questions about the war and Kevin groaning and saying, __"__Oh piss off Gavin.__"_

_I smiled and walked into the dining room and opened up the first pack of __"__Gold Club__"__ cards and started counting them out. Ace, two of hearts, three of hearts __…_

_Got to the last three cards, no ace of spades. Start over with another pack. Let__'__s see the next one was __"__The Bad Pun Joker__"__, this one was complete. I looked at the third, it was in a different language, I__'__d use that as kindling next time we were in the bush._

_I called Gavin and Kev into the dining room to play cards. Gavin came running Kevin groaned and cursed something like, __"__You bloody piss head.__"_

_When the two of them were into the room we started playing cards. Ellie was coming down the stairs._

"_No, you can__'__t break bloody hearts if you__'__ve got a card in a different suit!__"__ Said Kevin lifting his arms into the air and pointing at Gavin__'__s three of hearts._

"_Shut of up Kev, if you don__'__t have the same suit you__'__re allowed to break hearts.__"_

"_No you__'__re bloody well not!__"_

_I smacked my hand on the table._

"_Kevin shut the hell up alright you can.__"__ I said throwing my five of hearts on as well._

_Kevin won the hand and got the most points and was losing._

_I smiled, but realising that Kevin was going to go into one of his sulks when he lost I thought about it carefully and hoped that he wouldn__'__t try to fight with me about something else again._

_Ellie went out for a walk at about 8.00, it wasn__'__t the best idea ever, but I wasn__'__t worrying too much she was a big girl, she could look after herself. About five minutes after she left Kevin gained another 13 points to put him at 137 or something like that and he got up from the table throwing his hand on the table cursing loudly and then saying,_

"_I__'__m finished and I__'__m going to go take a sleep.__"_

_Gavin groaned, he had been winning with only 32 points or something like that._

_I smiled weakly and then went out to the sentry post where Fi was sitting in the tree gazing at the book her eyes moving slowly across the page as if she was looking at every word and analyzing it, to see what kind of secrets it held._

_I climbed up the tree beside her and she looked at me and smiled._

"_What are you reading?__"_

"_Tangara_." She said smiling weakly at me, her eyes blazing with delight at seeing me there.

"What's that, a disease?" I asked knowing it wasn't that kind of book.

She smiled and laughed, an actual laugh, not forced, not stressed, just one of her old loving, carefree laughs. She seemed to be good at putting the future out of sight at times. She didn't seem to care right now.

She looked at me and moved closer to me, I put my arm over her and she looked up into my eyes. Then we kissed, a passionate little session, something like what Kevin and Corrie used to have on top of their sleeping bags.

We heard Ellie pushing the big wooden gate open, it was incredibly quiet in the city right about now. Fi pulled away, although I knew that she hated it as much as I did.

She picked up her book, folded the page she was on quietly and she closed it firmly and slid down the tree gracefully. Then she looked at Ellie and said something. I wasn't really paying attention.

I looked at the radio that I'd carried out to the tree. I put it by my hip and waited as Ellie went inside with Fi to hand out her loot. When she came back she climbed into the tree and was panting like a dog, the stress was really getting to her, our little session, Fi and I, well that was polluting my brain with thoughts of what it meant and of going farther.

Ellie was rubbing the underside of his chin, trying to create saliva, my counsellor had taught me that. 

"A patrol is coming."

I then heard them coming and I tensed where I was. You never knew the bastards might just come to take a piss under our tree. I was on edge and then the motor patrol zoomed away down the street, giving us no trouble.

I wondered why they were patrolling so much, maybe there was a huge amount of resistance in the city, maybe they hadn't weeded everyone out after nearly a year of searching, although that was completely possible and it was extremely dangerous for them.

It would be easy for a local of Stratton to take the back routes and pop up and attack them, doing massive damage and then disappearing into the large expanses of streets without trouble.

I wondered if they were maybe looking for us, after our escape from the prison, it was highly possible. However I doubted that we were that important. I just figured now that it was them hunting out resistance, or maybe being hunted.

I turned on the radio, turned the dial to the appropriate signal and frequency if that's not the same thing and then I spoke into it,

"Charlie, Baker, Foxtrot. Charlie, Baker, Foxtrot."

Ryan had jotted down a list of the responses we'd get from the Kiwis when D-Day was underway. We waited and waited for about a minute and a half. 

I never thought that my life could possibly hang in the balance of one word, but this time it did, this one word would mean that I was going to have another few hours of stress and life or it could mean stress, attacks and possible death. Neither was very good but I was hoping for D-Day to start, to get all the stress of waiting out of the house.

"Pineapples."

I sighed, damn, Pineapples meant D-Day delayed twelve hours. I could have cried, another twelve hours of this shit, this waiting and fearing and hoping that it would start, hoping for the relief and it still hadn't come.

I just about cried. I shut the radio off, not wanting to get tracked and then I looked at Ellie and sighed again. How would we break it to everyone else? It wouldn't be a good reaction I can tell you that.

Then I thought to my history class and the only thing I could remember was D-Day in Europe, it had been postponed one day, I remember getting that one correct on a test and it had worked, the weather had broken just long enough for them to attack. I hoped the Kiwis would get the same chance.

Anger, stress and the extreme nervousness of the situation was working on me now. I was listening intently, waiting for the next patrol to come rolling around the corner to do some more damage.

Ellie left me alone with a tractor magazine and considering that these things could make my life easier on the farm I was quite interested in them, always wanted to get a bigger better one so that we could do all our work faster.

Still, that was in the past, I just liked to pretend that we weren't really about to go and kill more people. Then Ellie started talking about attacking the patrols. She took her bloody well time trying to get my attention. But once we started talking about it we really got going.

Lee came out for his turn on sentry and he climbed up with us and joined in. saying we should try and kill all of them so that no one could report what had happened. Typical Lee, trying to overkill, as usual.

Then Fi and Kevin got in on it and soon we were all in on it, trying to figure out the best way to kill these guys, trying to figure out how to be the most efficient.

Finally we came to the conclusion that a simple little trick on the road, like I used to plan and never do, would work the best.

Some oil on the black unlit roads of Stratton would be perfect, the motor patrols would go flying this way and that everyone wounded, a couple dead here and there, disruption, anger, frustration, anxiety, fear. We could really do some major mental damage to a lot of guys and physical damage to a just a few.

So it was decided without Gavin knowing it because he would have been a major hindrance out there.

So that night, just after dark we snuck out of the house, or attack would be by Ellie, Fi and I, so that if we were caught or killed, a major possibility, Kevin and Lee could still attack.

Although I don't know how that would work out. Kevin might get shaky and take another mental fit and Lee would have to watch out for Gavin and get Kevin back to fighting fit.

It was all so dangerous, but we didn't really have any other alternative. I had found that Fi wasn't always the most reliable at times and with her and Kevin being our weakest links there had to be three so that one person could always work without the trouble of a slack team mate. And no Fi, I'm not flipping you off.

We went out to an old fire garage and found so half gallon buckets, four I think and I crawled underneath the big diesel bus outside and drained all of the diesel out into the buckets, shoving them over to Ellie.

They were heading out with two buckets each and I held back for a minute. I went to the bus door and pushed on it. Nothing happened, it was locked. I took a rag from a bench near me and wrapped my hand and smashed the window in.

I undid the lock and opened the door. Ellie was looking at me terrified as I entered the bus. I looked around, trying to find something useful. I opened the overhead bin and found something, the kits of around thirty soldiers.

I started to pull the kit bags down and ripped them open, spitting on their uniforms, taking their pistols and removing the clips. I took seven pistols to hide. Then I took everything they had, cigarettes and everything and took them with me.

Ellie and Fi were looking at me. In under about two minutes I'd just ripped apart one of the soldiers' buses. I left through the broke window of the door and closed it and locked it smiling contently.

Then I took the pistols and crawled under the buss again. I cut the radiator fluid and left it drain out. Then I stuck a couple of pistols into the muffler and chucked the rest of the pistols and cigarettes into the bushes, spare a couple. I could use them to start fires, like explosive fires.

Then we kept going, heading for the city centre. We got close enough to it and we found a nice big Safeway. I smiled as we found a good spot. I was looking for a place to leave a little present for them.

I figured we'd be out of here in a few minutes so as the girls went to hide I found the back entrance to the Safeway, I was sure they had propane in here somewhere. They went out and they put the oil onto the black bitumen, black on black I smiled.

We decided to hide and wait and oh boy I was ready for it. I was thinking about the propane, if I could break in and get some propane, then boom I could make one hell of a bang.

But I didn't, it didn't seem to be that smart an idea, it probably wouldn't work, I'd probably get us all killed. I watched as the motorcycles came roaring down the street, two of them veering off the street and into the car park time for some freestyle. I sat there waiting.

I watched as the first one looked over at the two in the car park and then he suddenly had his front tire wobble and his head went forward, almost cracking his head against them. Then his arms started to wobble and then his back wheels began to wobble and then he went out of control and the bike flipped end over end as he tried to do something.

The second one had seen what was happening and he turned his bike to avoid it but not in time and he hit the oil and his bike slid off the ground and flipped up in the air about a metre, the guy came down on his head hard, I thought he was paralysed or dead.

But he was on his feet, just like the first guy, almost immediately. Still once he got to his feet his legs became spaghetti as he struggled to stay on his feet. The third bike had hit the oil and his rider went flying through the air his helmet aiming at the footpath.

He hit the ground and bounced, with cracks and smashes, his bike hitting a power pole and the lights flickering, the sound echoing around. The man slid to a gutter and just lay there, if he was alive he was in a lot of pain, that was certain.

"Let's get out of here." I said and we got out of there as the soldiers closed in to help their buddies.

We started running and I mean running and we kept running, almost the whole way to Ellie's grandmother's house. We stopped a short way before that, our of breathe huffing and puffing.

But me and Fi were together, walking quietly, lately I couldn't stop thinking about her, I was really unto her lately, she was like some kind of illness were every few days you suddenly like her like she was the love of your life. Still this all depended on the day of the week, the month and over course the relative humidity in the room.

I couldn't understand why I always doubted myself, I liked her one minute, I'd walk by a gum tree and I'd not feel the same emotion. She was different than any other girl I'd ever been rapt in, she was off and on, hot and cold. I guess I was the same for her, or well, from what Ellie's written maybe it was just me.

We got back to the house and waited for Kevin and Lee to do the radio check, Pineapples, another twelve hours. A plan began to flower in my mind, I wanted to go again. I told the others, Ellie was reluctant, she wasn't much for this whole attacking thing, but what else was she going to do?

Well I mean the same thing that, her, Lee and I had been doing for a while now, we'd go to our little cache of paper and start to write, just like I'm doing now, you've got spare time start writing.

Before the war I was pretty good at English, I mean like a 95 average high. Ellie doesn't give me much credit, but I never tried to make much of a big deal about marks so, serves me right. Mind you maths weren't great, science was alright, chem was good, what else, I can't even remember, history I was good at always got like a 90 on that.

I would get good marks in the classes I liked and terrible ones in the classes I hated. But anyways, no one ever thought that I liked to write, but ever since I was a kid I liked to write.

I think it was cause Mum always said that I was named after Homer the Poet, the one who wrote about the Trojan War, with the horse and all, I wanted to be like him, I wanted to live up to my name I guess, I just never told anyone.

I don't know, I had a persona to live up to at school, I guess I still do, so I just hide the big emotions and either laugh or get angry. I mean even Ellie wrote at the start how much I'd changed right away from crazy and foolish and immature to being this great, brave, leader, a true Greek!

Anyways yeah, it took forty-five minutes of debate and "Yes that'll work," No that won't work!""What are you talking about?""That's a stupid idea!""Oh God I'm so tense I couldn't piss if I tried.""My head hurts.""Yeah well my boob hurts cause you let a branch go too early Homer!" Ellie, of course, "Well my crotch hurts from falling on a rock the size of a tennis ball!""When did that happen?" Ellie "When I just thought of it now!"

Finally Kevin came up with an idea, after we had a huge argument about which would hurt more, getting slapped in the boob or getting kicked in the crotch, which the guys firmly won. Fi was in stitches through half of it, Gavin just kept holding his crotch whenever getting kicked was mentioned. Kevin was sitting with his head in his hands and Lee was somewhere, doing sentry.

Anyways, here I was standing behind this telephone box, waiting, the wire was clenched in my hand, two patrols had already gone by, two patrols had missed us by feet and they didn't even know it.

I kneeling there and Ellie came over, she was losing her cool and her patience she wanted to get back to the others and she wanted to do it fast. I wanted to wait for one more patrol. 

We waited, the buzzing came and I felt excitement boil up inside me again, I smiled, this was going to be good. I let the first two go by, then the next three, but I saw one guy coming up from behind, he was far behind and losing ground.

He came screaming through the crosswalk, trying to catch up, I was smiling even more broadly now. His front tire left the bitumen, this was perfect, he was just about to the wire and I pulled as hard as I could, Ellie did too and the wire jerked into a straight line across the bitumen, gleaming.

The man hit the wire and I tugged harder, feeling the wire digging into my clenched fist. The wire snapped but that didn't matter, the man went flying into the air, the bike flipping and spinning away.

The man was flying through the air, it would have been fun if it wasn't for the landing that was imminent. The bike came screaming towards me, I had been watching the man fly through the air like some kind of crazy video game explosion, I hear the bike go ripping by me and I ducked back behind the telephone box just in time, another second and I would have been dead.

I began to reel in the wire as fast as I could, rolling it around my elbow and then up to the space between my thumb and my index finger, just like you do with everything. Wrapping it quickly, it was taking the men in front of this guy a long time.

The guy was lying on another footpath, sprawled, not moving probably dead. I didn't care, served the bastard right.

The other bikes began to turn around, we were out of time.

"Come on!" I said and I took off running, Ellie right behind my pulling in the wire, pulling it in.

I kept running, running as hard as I could, Kevin was around somewhere I hoped. It was a mad dash, I looked behind me once and I couldn't see Ellie, but then I saw her turn towards me and start to run. I saw the fence, I jumped up onto it and made a made dash, a scramble up and over it, grabbing the top and hauling myself up and over, feeling the strain in my underarms.

I was on the top of the fence, not yet over. Ellie was a few steps behind me, shit, farther than I thought when I looked back. I stuck out my left arm, it was my strongest and I felt her hand grip mine in a tight grip.

I felt my arm strain but I began to pull, the lights illuminating the entire driveway. I pulled her over and then rolled just as she rolled.

I hit the ground just after with a hard thump that just about winded me and then she landed on me. I could feel her breathing, my arm was across his stomach, she was warm, breathing hard, I was trembling and so was she, trembling like an autumn leaf trying to hang onto the branch.

"Do you think they saw you?"

"How should I know?" She said crossly, sorry El, just wanted to know what you thought, always after me for not doing that enough and the one time I do you bite my head off.

"Where's Kevin?""Will you stop asking silly questions?"

Man was she having a PMS fit right now and yes that was a stupid silly question Ellie.

We heard Kevin.

"Do you two want to be left alone."

I just about said, "Yes and oh Kev were are the condoms?" But considering Ellie was about as liable to kick me in the crotch to test our theories I said nothing.

"What happened?"

She asked as she got off me. There was something oddly exciting about having her body on mine, it was probably wrong and just lust but still I can't say I didn't like it, especially after just about dying!

"I think we're ok, the guy's badly hurt." Then he said something else about his head and not remembering much.

"Fair enough, do you want to go back and have another look."

Ellie took another bitch fit and left, so we decided that we'd take a little glance. I thought that it would be bad to know that we'd killed him but worse to not know.

So we snuck back and we saw him, lying with a sheet over his face, oh yes he definitely was dead, I felt shivers go through my spine but I smiled almost happy, served those bastards right, this was my country! Our country! It would be ours again soon!


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

When we got back we all went to bed, even though we knew that there wasn't a hope in hell of anyone getting any sleep. Me and Lee lay in our room, Lee said good-night, a joke of course, I was lying there in my underwear, under the blankets.

"So," Said Lee, trailing off.

"So what?"

"I don't know, how'd it go tonight?"

"Alright, could have gone better Ellie's in a pissed off mood."

"Well the stress is getting to all of us." Said Lee with affection.

"Yeah well, anyways I thought you aren't into her the way you used to be?" I laughed, a hard laugh, letting the stress roll off me.

"Shut up." He chucked a cushion at me, hitting the wall with a thump.

I chucked it back and hit him, he groaned.

"Right in the kisser!" I said laughing some more.

Lee was annoyed.

"Ah shut-up Homer, I'm trying to get some R and R over here."

"Oh yeah, until Ellie comes." Then we both laughed, one of the first real laughs.

"Yeah what about you and Fi?"

"What about us?" I asked as I closed my eyes and suddenly felt wide awake.

"Well I mean, are you as into her as you'd like to me."

"Ah shut-up Lee." I said and we laughed a little and then we were quiet for about half and hour.

Then I got up, I was boiling and wide awake. I groaned and walked down the stairs, thumping down them. Gavin was asleep and Kevin had gone on guard duty when we got back, another hour and a half.

To my surprise Fi was lying on the couch downstairs, in her short shorts and a little pink tank top.

She opened her eyes when I came down the stairs. From where I was standing I could see Kevin doing sentry. Fi stood up and met me at the bottom of the stairs. She kissed me, lightly on the lips.

I began to kiss her back, walking backwards, pushing the door to the next room open, looking back and see a couch. We kept walking and I lay back on the wide couch in the next room. We lay beside each other there, looking at each other.

My hands were on her back, slowly stroking her, slowly, up and down, under her tank top. She put her arms around my neck and began to kiss me slowly, passionately. I kissed her back my hands roaming around underneath her tank top.

Her hands moved from around my neck to down to my underwear and then her hands slowly began to slide in there, I felt a rush of excitement and I looked at her she seemed to be equally excited.

My hands slowly slid down to the edge of his short shorts and then around her hips to the front, slowly sliding my hands inside her short shorts. She gasped a little and then pushed herself a little closer to me. I smiled and then slowly, she began to push down on my underwear.

Then we sat up for a moment, she looked at me,

"Condom!" She demanded.

I looked at her, smiling faintly, fair enough, I liked kids but I didn't want to become a Dad, not yet anyways.

I looked behind me, there was my pack, sitting there, I opened it and stuck my hand into the deep pack and looked around and finally found the box, I pulled it out and then opened it, my hands shaking slightly from the excitement, then I pulled out one condom from the box and unwrapped it.

Then I turned at faced Fi, she was naked, completely naked. This was the first time I'd actually seen a fully matured girl naked in person, right in front of me, I felt my body get hot, I felt an excited nervous and then I took the plunge.

I thought back to the Sex Ed classes in school, how to put on a condom, thought about it and then tried to recreate the little pamphlets that everyone had been given.

Once it was on, I faced Fi and began to kiss her, her face was flushed red and she was breathing fast, her excitement was hardly contained. I smiled as she lay back on the couch and I lay on top of her.

After that it was alright, not as amazing as all the porno's make it seem, but it was still exciting and I enjoyed it. It wasn't long, maybe five minutes, still, Fi seemed to enjoy it, but afterwards we lay there, under a blanket that Fi had found, cuddling together, skin against skin.

We talked about it for a little while, "What was it like for you?" "How did it feel?" "Did you like it?"

I don't know, stuff like that, but then Fi popped a question I hadn't expected,

"What time is it?" She asked, I looked at my wrist watch, it was late.

"Kevin isn't off for another hour and fifteen minutes." I said.

"What to do it again?" She asked, I looked at her surprised, she smiled a devilish smile that I had rarely seen.

"Well if you really want to." I said looking at her.

She smiled and then she kissed me again, I wondered if we were really going to do it, again.

"On second thought," Fi said, smiling devilishly again, "I don't want to be too easy," She kept smiling, "but don't worry, we'll do it again, maybe next time we get a chance."

I smiled and then hugged her, holding her tightly in my arms. Then I let my hands roam, it was interesting and exciting to be allowed to do that and Fi seemed to enjoy it.

Then she did the same for me, at some point, I don't know when, we both fell asleep and we woke up when Kevin slammed the door and then opened it again and crept outside.

I woke up and Fi was looking at me, I looked at my watch, it was time to switch the guard, Fi was up next. She quickly dressed and hurried out of the room, even though I wanted her to stay, it had been quite a night and for a little while anyways, I'd forgotten all about the war.

I couldn't wait for the next time we were alone, I was thinking about ways in which we could sneak off. I thought of all the porno movies, let's see, closets, bathrooms, bathrooms on airplanes, but we didn't have an airplane.

Then I thought more realistically, tonight we would both have our chance, if we got another "Pineapples" so I guess that another delay might be nice.

The next morning I told everyone quite frankly that if we got another "Pineapples" I was going to try to electrocute a soldier by running a live electrical wire into a puddle, getting the soldier to stand in the puddle and be killed instantly.

Never mind the fact that the entire world would figure it out with a quick autopsy, if I did it right he'd be stone dead and we'd be long gone.

So we did a radio check and got a "Call back at twenty-one hundred." I made a weak joke, "But that's not a code word! Oh God, oh Jesus what are we going to do you guys that's not a codeword."

Ellie gave me a quick slap in the back of the head, oh thanks El, I so wanted to be slapped in the back of the head for making a joke. Man she can by a joke Nazi when she wants to be.

So we spent the day desperately preparing ourselves for the next big operation ahead. We spent most of the day just sitting there talking about what we could do should the major assault take place.

Kevin tried at 8.59, no good, nothing but static, we all grumbled and walked back into the house and sat around stewing for a while, waiting for our chance an hour later. Although me and Fi did get a chance to be alone in my room. She wanted to go for it and so did I, but there was a quick knock at the door and I quickly had to pull my hands out from underneath her shirt and quickly sit up to make it look like we were just talking.

"C'mon." I said gruffly.

"Let's play cards." Said Gavin, then he looked at us, sitting together on the bed, "What are you two doing?"

"Just talking." Said Fi kindly smiling at him.

"What's with you guys and always being alone together and talking and the funny noises from Lee's room last night-"

"Alright Gavin we'll be right down." Said Fi as he turned and left the room, thumping down the stairs muttering to himself.

I looked at Fi and she looked at me a smile coming across her face, then she began to smile.

"Poor kid." She said, "He has to watch four of us sneaking off and doing stuff he can't know about."

"Yeah I know, I feel sorry for Kevin too." I said smiling as we stood up and she laughed.

Then the reality dawned on us again and we headed down the stairs, Fi first about ten seconds later I went down. There were some crude remarks from Lee was saw sitting on the couch me and Fi had shared last night, saying something about rabbits.

Kevin was no better, his wide grin a tell tale sign. I didn't say anything just sat down and we all played cards in the kitchen until it was time and Kevin and Ellie left and went outside to check the radio again. Again no luck, they would walk out to the country and try one more time and eleven.

I thought that this might finally be our chance, but that wasn't going to work, I had to do sentry and then Fi right after. Still Fi came out and sat with me and was sat and talked quietly about everything, including sex and how she'd felt about if during the past year.

I told her my side of the story and then we talked about other stuff, like drugs and rock 'n roll. Well not drugs but the rock yes, we talked about everything, including about this time a girl at school had torn a strip off me and spent weeks trying to prove me wrong about these two bands, I said that Def Jaguar wasn't as good as Silver Straits. To which she went clean clipping crazy.

That kept Fi entertained she smiled and laughed about a lot of it. Although we had to be quiet, so she didn't laugh out loud, kind of to herself, but she was enjoying the story.

We sat out there together until the other two got back. It was our word, we were ready, we were going back into combat mode.

We went in and started packing frantically, but sensibly. I was ready, my M4 rifle was packed and I had as many clips as I could packed in there. I smiled slightly as I took out the ammunition belt that Ryan had given us and I wrapped it around my waist, slightly over my belt and I started to attached magazines of ammunition.

I suddenly remembered a hunting trick I'd learn, make sure nothing makes noise. I looked down at my belt and realised that the second I started to walk I'd sound like a tin can army at the march.

I found a tee-shirt and I wrapped it around the belt, so that the spaces in between the magazines was filled, so the magazines couldn't move. Then I went back to packing, the grenades on the sides, stuffed into the side pockets, then stuffed with little pieces of cloth so they wouldn't make any noise.

After packing away four I took the last two and attached them to my belt, near the front so that I had quick access. I thought back to the war movies, I tried to attach the grenades to the belt in such a way that when I pulled a grenade off the belt the pin would come out so that the grenade would be ready to explode.

In the end I gave up, if I needed a grenade I'd rip it off the belt and pull the pin by hand. Still I was worried, in the second in would take to the pull the pin we all might be dead.

I sighed, so this is what it was like to be a soldier. I just thought of all those American movies with the paratroopers in the planes, dropping in loaded up to their noses with gear, looking like hippos and starting to kill Germans everywhere, we were doing the same thing without the parachutes or the Germans.

So at around 2.00 I came staggering out with enough weaponry and equipment to keep us alive for months. The pack was stretching and I didn't like to think about what would happen if in the middle of a chase it burst all over the place, spewing weapons and explosives?

I pushed that thought from my mind,

"Ready boys and girls?" I asked smiling cheerily, trying to be cheery about what we were about to do.

"Been ready for half an hour." Said Lee smiling weakly.

"Any chance you'll ever say boys and girls again?" Ellie asked.

"None at all." I said, as Ellie wrote, cheerfully, not really just trying to sound it.

The bloody pack was digging into my shoulders, holy hell it hurt like a bitch, but I wasn't going to say that and I needed, or I should say, we needed all the equipment we could get.

Then Gavin staggered out, looking like a veteran leaving the legion, drunk as old hell. He was swinging left and right, I began to piss myself with laughter, it was hilarious.

Ellie asked him if it was too heavy and he said no way or something and that he could take more. I smiled, he was one tough little bugger I'd give him that.

So we headed out, I took the lead and took off at a cracking pace in the half moon. I wanted to get going, I wanted to use this stressed energy and really tire myself, it was the only way I'd run out of the stressed energy that had built up inside me like water building up over the edge of a dam, eventually it was going to spill over the top, unless to let it out slowly.

Not that I have that much experience with dams. But I built a dam once that completely blocked off the little stream that fed all our water. All I remember is Dad's blood pressure going so high that he just about killed me. Luckily I managed to jump on the bike and sped off to find the dam, George and Dad hot on my heels.

I remember coming up through the bush and finding my wonderful little dam and seeing that on the other side of my wonderful little dam there was just a brown dried up area where the water had once run.

This dam, was massive, like four feet tall and it was holding back on hell of a lot. I didn't know what to do, so I started to kick it and kick it and kick it. When it broke I just about killed myself, there was that much water that I was knocked off my feet and thrown downstream about half a kilometre. When I woke up I was on the side of the stream, or I should say river, with half my body still in the stream.

I think everyone started to worry about me because it was getting dark when I woke up and it was George that found me. Dad was on the other side of the river, when they couldn't find me, they went on both sides of the river and they walked up it, looking for me, hunting for me.

It was a shining moment in George's big brotherhood, I was about 12 and he was 14. He slid down the side of the bank and said the most beautiful thing I've ever heard him say, "Oh Jesus, Homer, shit, that was one big frigging dam you built. Dad over here."

Alright it wasn't the nicest thing, but he grabbed me and cradled me in his arms, pulled me out of that cold bloody water and tried to warm me up until Dad got there.

Dad was great, kind and they were caring and loving until they realised that I had taken a bike. I remember sitting on the back of George's bike, in July, the coldest bloody month just out of the freezing cold water, thinking shit, I can't wait to go home and get warm. Then George said, "Wait a second, where the hell is the other bloody bike?"

So I had to lead him and Dad on their bikes up to my bike, half a kilometre up the river and then I had to get on and ride home by myself.

Mom wasn't exactly happy with me either, she couldn't make supper because the well had almost dried up of water, so by the time I got back with the other two there still was only about half a tank of water, not enough.

They warmed me up and then I got changed into warmer clothes. Then Dad and George made me go up to the bloody well in the pitch black every thirty minutes to check on it, in the dark and the cold and the worst bit was that it took about twenty-five minutes to get up and back.

I don't think they needed me to do that, but they wanted to punish me for it. Still at about eleven the well was filled Mom made supper and all was well again, pardon the pun.

I was jogging, sweating buckets, feeling like I'd just gone for a swim and wishing that I could go jump in that cold river again, cool me down.

Still during the time when we were jogging, well now walking, I had been thinking about my childhood and how amazing it had been, despite all the trouble I had been and how many times people had wanted to skin me alive.

I dropped out of the lead at about 5.00 in the morning and let Lee lead. I took the back to make sure no one was following and I kept thinking about my childhood.

I thought fondly of the time I got our angriest bull all pissed off, waving red and him and doing this and that, because we were going to sell him off, he had been one of our breeders, meaning he was a Dad to some of the cows, but the guy we were selling him to just wanted a bull, he didn't want a breeder, he wanted him castrated, don't know why.

So I pissed the bull off, I was about 15 and then walked away from the barn and met George on the way out, ready to do the snip, snip. I smiled at him and said, "He's all yours."

George just about was killed, I mean he managed to castrate the bull but he just about got it himself and when he came storming into the house twenty minutes later I had casually made my escape to Ellie's five minutes earlier.

When I got back that night George just about killed me, Dad was very angry as was Mom, I mean I just about killed George.

But once George had gone off, left the room, Dad starting to piss himself laughing and then got serious again, I had to do the early morning stock for a month.

Still it was hilarious.

All the others times came to mind, like when I waited for one of the bulls to fall asleep, then I tied another bull's leg to this one's balls. Then I made a loud noise and they went crazy. I mean Dad tried to kill me for it because I just about ripped the bull's balls off but it was hilarious, because it was just twine and it ripped right away, it just shocked the bull that's all. Then they got pissed and went at each other trying to fight each other.

8.00 came, we were close to the Russell Highway, overlooking it from a ridge. I smiled when I told everyone this and then Fi said she'd do first sentry. Ellie went off somewhere, Gavin followed her. Lee crept off into the bush and Kevin lay against a tree and fell asleep.

I went a sat with Fi and we talked some more, kissed a little, not much, because the traffic was picking up. She fell asleep on my shoulder after a while and I woke her and told her to go find Ellie and have a sleep with her and Gavin and I'd do the sentry.

She said she didn't want to at first and then she did, she got off and she gracefully walked away.

I sat up watching as the explosions on the horizon grew more intense, the Kiwis sure as hell were making a hell of an effort, they really were going for broke, I smiled broadly at this, I hoped that it worked, I really hope that this bastards were getting the piss kicked out of them and that Kiwi soldiers and tanks were rolling across the terrain, beating back the enemy. However, figuring the intensity of the bombs, I figured that it wasn't going amazingly well, but then again maybe they were just softening up the enemy.

Then Ellie crawled over, looking groggy and tired and annoyed. We had a little chat about what was going on, Kevin crawled over as well and lay there watching the road.

He suggested destroying the cliff face and taking out the road. But that was impossible to do, where do you put the explosives for instance? How much do you use? What if you use too much and in the wrong places? A lot lost for nothing gained, something Dad used to say when me or George messed something up on the farm, most of the time it was me, not thinking, not paying attention, but sometimes it was George.

So we woke Fi and Lee and Fi took sentry. Ellie and Lee went one way, looking on the road to see what was going on, see where there was a good target. Kevin and I went the other way.

As we walked I smiled and looked at him, "Do you think it was a good idea, Ellie and Lee alone."

Kevin looked at my, not understanding for a second then realising and smiling, laughing.

"I mean what if they get 'distracted'? Then what do they find out? 'Well I found out that Ellie likes it when you touch her,'" I stopped and looked at Kevin who was smiling and laughing to himself.

It was so true though, well not really, I doubted very much that they'd go at it walking in the bush along the road, like might like to, but Ellie wouldn't.

We kept walking along the road until we found something of interest, a truck stop.

We walked back and told the others what we'd found. I said that there were guards but if we attacked at night we'd be able to get around them. I looked at everyone, Fi looked alarmed, Lee smiled a vicious little smile, Ellie didn't look impressed and Kevin looked quite worried.

Fi asked me what I wanted to do. I sat down on a rock. During our walk back I had planned it all out, it took me ten minutes, but by that time, I had them all, everyone single one of them on board and ready to do this.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7 **

So shortly after we had decided our plan, decided we were going to attack the servo, we started out making our weapons, our charges, in assembly line fashion.

While the others set about making our bombs for our evening raid, I went and did sentry, keeping watch. Watching the road.

Trucks were going by in a steady stream, on the horizon I could see smoke, explosions, thunder from the horizon. They were in a vicious battle, that was for sure. They were really having at her.

Then suddenly the thunder came closer, I can believe the others didn't hear. At first it was just one shell, it landed in the field behind the servo, then there was another one and another one. Then a long line of shells just came crashing down, sending the ground flying into the air, sending soldiers running from the servo, jumping to the other side of the road, hiding in the ditch, putting their heads down, that was smart.

I figured that if the Kiwis could drop them that close, they were getting somewhere. Then suddenly I saw a plane whoosh by overhead, it was high up and in the distance. It had fired rockets, that made more sense. He had bad aim though, he missed completely.

Finally, as I lazily was propped up against a tree, Ellie came over to discuss going somewhere, finding another target, filling her time, because she was stressed out. I thought about saying, "You know what really relieves stress? Sex! Why don't you go sleep with Lee, cause I want to sit here some more and think about Fi and not about killing people."

But I didn't figured I'd get my balls kicked. So I agreed and tiredly stood up and began to walk with her, searching for the nearest airstrip behind a gum tree.

We walked, just the three of us, yes Gavin had to tag along as well. He was running ahead, zigzagging everywhere looking at everything.

Me and Ellie walked slowly, looking at everything. A hole in the earth, this and that, not seeing much. It was warm, I wanted to go back with Fi or sleep, or be with Fi while I slept. Ok maybe that wouldn't happen, there might not be so much sleeping.

Anyways after a little while we came across something very interesting, a very good target and all of a sudden I was foaming at the mouth, so happy we'd done this! So happy we'd stumbled across this wonderful target, a railroad track.

Gavin stormed down to the track to check it out, bloody idiot, I began to jump up and down, waving my hands like a mad man, even lifted my shirt, se if that would get his attention, guess I should have made Ellie do it.

Finally Ellie had to go down to the track and pull him away, God damn Gavin being deaf! I know it's not his fault, but still, Jesus be a little careful, you've only got 80% of your senses and the way he was acting the soldiers would make him senseless with a little piece of led.

So we walked along the ridge, looking down at the tracks, looking for a good spot to strike, looking for the Achilles tendon.

It was then for some reason that this weird myth I'd heard came to mind, my father always used to tell me. He said that the English and the Brits have a killer instinct, that it's because of that they won all the wars.

I asked him once why the Italians or the Greeks were never as powerful after the wars. He said that it was because we lacked the killer instinct. The one that pretty much only the Brits, Germans and Russians seemed to have.

I asked him if Australians had the killer instinct, he said of course, most of the Aussies were of British descent, same with the Kiwis and the Canucks and to a certain extent the Americans.

I asked him if I had it and he said only half of it. I was an Aussie, but a Greek, so I was half killer half lover. I used to hate that, but now I quite liked it, now that the lover part seemed to be more important in my lifestyle.

I thought of Fi for a split second, my mind picturing her wonderful body, lying in front of me, her brown eyes looking into mine, deep into my soul. I forced my mind back to where I was, I could picture this later, when I had the time for it, or when it was actually happening.

We found a good spot, there was a bridge, about 100 metres long, across the gully, right over the tracks. Beautiful, my killer instinct was kicking in I guess. Ellie said we could drop the bridge on it, or wreck the lines. Or we could do both, as I suggested, doubtful.

I was starting to get a sinking feeling in my stomach, we were going to either get captured or killed eventually and this seemed like it could be our downfall, I was starting to feel that this was a little out of reach.

I had to remember Cobbler's Bay and remember how we'd destroyed that ship. We had to pull it off again, to work just as hard, to do the same thing all over again.

But I still wasn't as confident. We began walking back up the line, "Where's Gavin?" I asked.

"God, I don't know." Said Ellie, anxious.

"He's probably ripping up the tracks with his bare hands." I said, laughing slightly at my own joke.

Ellie said something about him learning before we all died.

We walked faster, looking for him, looking, looking, where the hell was he? Then we saw him, down on the tracks, God didn't he get taught that you aren't supposed to be near the tracks? What did his school rules say?

But his hand was on the track, he was looking very serious, very concentrated. Then suddenly he looked up, nervous, scared. He crouched low to the ground and he raced up the slope towards us.

That scared me, he was going fast, faster than he should have and that he'd been able to see us so easy, know where we were without looking for us and he was deaf, he couldn't hear us.

We slipped back into the trees, taking cover, shelter, something was coming. We ducked down, hiding in the bushes, watching as the slow little machine, being pumped by two men went by slowly. Six soldiers sitting on its edges, their machine guns at the ready, they wanted to take life, they wanted to be at the frontlines, maybe they were on their way.

I wondered how much experience they'd had with war? I'd want to be at the frontlines if I'd only ever been behind the war zone.

It slowly went by, slowly then to the bridge then around the corner and out of sight. We stood up, relaxing, all my muscles coming loose, feeling loose. Then suddenly Gavin stuck his hand up into the air and then pointed to the bend.

It took us another five, ten seconds but we heard it, a big locomotive came rolling around the corner. It was a big thing, greasy, smoke puffing out as it rolled slowly by.

I began to count, I got up to 23. That was a lot of cars, a lot of soldiers. I tried to remember my war stuff, those things looked like the carriages they'd have used during the wars, what did they call them?

40 and what? 40 and 8's, because you could fit 40 men and 8 horses into one. So 23 times 40 is close to 1000, like 920. That's a lot of soldiers heading towards Cavendish.

"Wow, what a target." I said, amazed, we had to blow this up.

"Let's blow them up!" Piped in Gavin smiling broadly, happily.

"Do you reckon it's going to Cavendish?" Asked Ellie.

"Well yeah, obviously, right now. But that doesn't mean they'll stay there."

We rushed back to the other three, who weren't exactly waiting for us with their arms open, so excited to see us.

"Where the hell have you been?" Asked Kevin angrily.

"Off doing some recon!" I snapped back angrily.

"I don't give a shit, we didn't know where you were, you've been gone hours!"

"We've just found the target of a lifetime!" I said back angrily, at loss of words to say.

They ranted and raved for a few minutes until I finally cut in and got to tell them about the train tracks.

They decided that, if we had time afterwards we'd look at the tracks.

We then set about deciding our plans for battle, if they did this, we'd do that. It was like playing a game of chess. The problem was there were so many plans, so much detail, we needed weeks and lots of studying to remember everything.

It was getting dark now, the sun was setting. So we all racked off, Kevin took sentry, Lee and Ellie made so charges and Gavin was off doing something. I took the opportunity to grab a condom and find Fi, I was stressed. I felt like a rubber band, I was being stretched to my limits and I couldn't take much more.

I was going to take some of my own advice, sex was a good outlet, that or boxing, but Kev wouldn't be fun to box with and Lee would be as likely to stab me with a rock as fight fair, so I found Fi.

I gently stroked her face, she was sitting against a tree, on this soft green slope, it was as good as place as we were going to find. I sat down beside her, she turned to me looking at me, fear in her eyes, she was worried, terrified, she needed to stop thinking about things for a few minutes.

"Homer I'm worried-"

I cut her off, kissing her passionately, she began to lay backwards, we were half sitting, half lying on the slope, just under the tree.

She was kissing me back, hard, our tongues frantically pushing against each other, caressing each other. Slowly she began to lean backwards, stopping for a second, just long enough to pull he shirt off, unclipping her bra.

I smiled as I leaned against her, kissing her. I undid her pants, slowly slipping them down a little, my hands roaming across her body. I quickly undid my pant and slid them down.

Fi looked at me only for a second, until I pulled a condom from my back pocket. Passion overwhelmed me, I took my shirt off. I put the condom on, excitement going through my body, jolting through me like electric currents.

I felt at that moment that I love Fi, that yes I loved her. I had doubted myself and my feelings for her a lot, but now I knew that at least at this moment in time, I love her.

Our bare skin touched, our bellies touching, warmth spreading, the excitement jolted through Fi, she convulsed all over, just like I did. I lay on her gently, her knuckles white against my shoulders as she pulled me in.

This time it was far better, it wasn't as awkward or nerve racking, we both knew how it worked now, or knew how to do it.

Our bodies convulsed and we kissed passionately. Fi gave our a little cry, I thought of pain, until I saw her face, a cry of passion.

Once we'd finished we slipped back up to the tree and dressed again and I got rid of the condom, sticking in a whole in the tree.

Me and Fi walked back apart, like we were just people on a hike who'd met each other, nothing special, no connection here at all.

Ellie was cranky, nasty, upset and I wondered then if maybe she knew, but I was too pleased with what had just happened to worry about it. Then the fear started to set in, a fear in my stomach, the fear that I was about to die, that this was about to take my life.

I stayed calm, or I tried, telling myself that we could do this, we just had to survive, just had to get it done, finished, quickly.

My mind began to think of killing again, the rifle that I might use would kill people, I didn't like that, I was getting tired of killing people, it had lost its effect, even them being invaders had lost the effect of making me want to kill.

I but on a brave face though, I knew I had to lead, or try and lead, just had to keep us in line, keep us alive. I knew though, that there was something wrong, something was sending alarm bells ringing in my mind, something, I didn't know what.

Everything else we'd done had taken a long time to plan, everything else was carefully decided, this was so quick, what if we got into action and things weren't the way they looked from up here?

We put on our daypacks took our M4 rifles and started out, this was it, on the road again, but to where. I was feeling nervous and the things that had happened a few hours ago weren't doing much to calm me or relieve any stress that had built up now.

I suddenly felt like we were walking to our graves, suddenly I knew that this could be the time. I thought back, thinking about the movies where the guys go out in a blaze of blood, bullets and bombs, I suddenly had a premonition.

I could see bodies lying on the bitumen, I could see Lee lying there, bullets riddled in him, Kevin shot up, Ellie dead lying there, Fi dead, Gavin dead, but in my mind's eye I was alive, kneeling on the ground in front of them.

There were soldiers all around, smiling, holding their rifles in the air, talking happily. I was slouched there with the pack by my side, the rifle over to the side, what was wrong with it?

It took me a few steps to realise what it was, what it meant to me, that I wasn't afraid of dying, that what I was worried about now was not death. I was worried about me, my body was shutting down, my insides weren't liquid, my stomach weren't filled with these huge butterflies for my own well being, hell no. It was my friends, I'd lost three already. I couldn't stand to lose another, I'd rather go down with bullets, blood and bombs than see my friends go down.

I instantly knew why I was so incredibly worried, it was because of what had being going on with me and Fi, we'd never been closer, we'd never been more into each other.

I realised that the stakes were higher now, I had my little brother to lose now, I had my sister to lose now. I had my lover to lose now, I had my two best friends to lose now.

When we got close to the bitumen it was time for Kevin to leave us, to go off to do his great stunt, to prove to us that he could be a help, that he wasn't a coward.

I wanted to see him do it, but I also knew that we were putting a lot in his hands. I remember the airfield, him blubbering, taking a breakdown, losing his nerve. He couldn't do it then, how could he do it now? What if this time it was worse?

That day I remember we needed five people, really we needed six or seven. Hey really we needed eight, but we only had four, with Kevin, holding us down, dead weight, almost getting us killed, almost making us pay with our lives.

I embraced him for a moment and whispered in his ear, "Do what you have to do."

I didn't know if he understood, or if I even understood, but I knew that I had to say something and that seemed to be the thing to say.

He just had to do it, he didn't have a choice, he had to complete this task, after that, I didn't care what he did, he could curl up in a ball if he wanted.

We kept going, slowly each one of us crossing the bitumen, slowly, each one carefully going across the black thing that could get us killed.

We kept going, creeping through the woods, silent, like ghosts.

I thought of this movie I watched about Vietnam, it brought chills to my spine. These Americans had done the same thing, they got into position, lying down completely in cover, they hadn't made a sound.

The sniper cocked his sniper and lights flicked on, spotlights, illuminating the area where they were hiding. They could all be seen and all around them were these Vietnamese soldiers, bayonets at the ready, weapons at the ready. The Americans managed to shoot their way out of it somehow or something I can't remember, but it stuck with me.

I just hoped that we weren't about to encounter the same thing.

We crept up to this building, there was a bathroom there, some old wreck of a thing, with a little dude standing their with a top hat and a cane, so it was a bathroom for the elderly.

We slowly made our way forward, after a soldier went to the bathroom, to the servo. We were close now and I knew that we were just about to do this.

We quickly said our goodbyes, Lee and I embraced for a second and he whispered in my ear "Blood, bullets and bombs." "We'll go down in flames." I said to him, we'd both seen the movie it was from, some war flick.

Then I gave Ellie I hug, she was warm, she was nervous I could feel it by the way she hugged back, just the way her arms felt when they wrapped quickly around my neck. I looked at her for a split second.

"Stop worrying about me, start praying for them." I said quietly to her, she knew who I meant.

Then we slowly slipped off into the dark, away from Ellie and Lee.

We slipped around in the dark, hiding from our enemies, using the shadows to slowly move to our position at the opposite end of the servo, where we would cause a diversion.

I let Fi take the lead, just for a few minutes. She stopped suddenly, crouching down even more than usual, Gavin stopped quickly and lay down on the ground. We'd managed to get him a pistol and he had it out and ready to use. His knife was attached to belt, so he could unclip it and drop it quickly if we were captured.

I saw his hand slowly move to that, I knew then, I crouched over and moved by him, slowly, my mind racing.

Fi looked at me and nodded forward, there were two soldiers standing there, watching, speaking in a muffled whisper. I looked at Fi, what could we do? The servo was a little ways off, their bodies might not get noticed for a little while, but there wasn't a convoy there yet, surely two men going missing would be noticed.

We waited for twenty minutes, then one of them said something and turned and headed for the servo. It was 10.20, if a convoy came I had it in my mind to use my rifle, or my knife, it was a six inch knife, attached to my belt, at my stomach.

I waited and waited, the time slowly going by, slowly ticking away. The man stood there still, still standing there. I was getting worried, I looked at Fi, her eyes wide with fear, I knew that she had a knife on her as well.

We waited another twenty-five minutes, now I was getting worried, then I heard the convoy coming, slowly arriving, approaching us. I knew that it was time, we still had a ways to walk and we had to do it quickly, enough of this bullshit.

I looked at Fi and whispered, "Stay here, if I get caught, run, I'll hold him off."

Her eyes widened and she shook her head no. "Fi, please, just get to safety with Gavin."

Before she had a chance to respond and slowly began to move forward. We were in a drainage ditch or something, it was a mound of dirt that ran along the side of the servo, like a dike or something. Anyways I crept along it, I dropped my equipment and my rifle, I had one plan and it was going to work come hell or high water.

The guy turned a little, in the opposite direction, he heard something. I stopped for a split second, it was nothing, an animal off in the distance.

I crept up quickly, my knife gleaming in the night. I was two steps away from him when I rose to full height, he suddenly heard me, or felt me coming and he turned. He managed to turn half way, so that his chest and face was looking at me.

I made a wild lunge at him, my knife at my waist, I stabbed up, into his stomach, my right hand flying to his mouth, covering his scream of pain, the lights of the convoy arriving.

I pulled the knife out, feeling the blood slowly leaking out, I didn't have time to think about what I'd done, but I knew that this guy wasn't dead yet. I stabbed him again and a third time for good luck.

Looking back I can't believe that I did it, but at the time I had a lot on the line, I had a lot to lose and a lot to gain, I have to keep that in mind.

I moved his lifeless body away from mine and he gasped a little gasp as I slid him off the mound. I didn't have much time, I got down behind the cover of the mound, it was about three feet tall and a waved for the other two to move up.

While they did that I grabbed the body and pulled it over to a bush a few metres from the mound and I laid him there, laid him to rest. His eyes gleamed in the light, his mouth open, blood trickling out of his mouth.

Even though I had every reason to hate these men with every fibre of my being I had to feel sorry for this one. I closed his eyes with my fingers, gently, feeling very hollow and horrible closing his eyes for the last time ever. I shut his mouth, removing his fear from his face. If there is something afterlife I hoped that at least now he could go into it, knowing that his body wouldn't be left in too bad a shape.

Although I knew that the best thing for me was that this guy wouldn't be found for another couple of hours, or days, weeks maybe even months. I hoped that the next people to find him would be Kiwis and not his own side.

I crept back to Fi and Gavin and we kept moving up the mound, as I rubbed the man's blood onto my jeans. This was it, I knew now that we were committed, or I was, blood, bullets and bombs. I guess that was a possibility now.


End file.
